2015-11-09
Bert here, designer of the AudioCubes. I’ve been working on then next beta build of our digital modular synthesizer, SYNTHOR. In particular, I’m working on porting it to our hardware platform so you’ll be able to run SYNTHOR without needing a PC or a Mac. Watch this newsletter for more news.
I’d also like to show you the second video in our BERLIN TEST SESSIONS, which we recorded leading up to our trip to Berlin the past weeks. In this video, you’ll see how I explore distance sensing, rotation sensing and patching, all simultaneously, in SYNTHOR.
SYNTHOR is running on my Macbook pro in the background, just out of sight. You can also run it on a windows PC, and it works exactly the same way. Plug in your cubes, set up the DSP processors you want for each cube and define which cube can modulate which other cubes, and sound comes out when you place them next to each other.
Distance is automatically linked to modulation depth, and you can also rotate the cubes to increase/decrease mod depth, because the sensors of the cubes have a viewing angle. As the cubes’ signals go towards the edge of the viewing angle, the signals become weaker which decreases the modulation depth.
You will also see in this video how I leverage the distance and rotation and patching functionalities to gesturally play the synthesizer. I am patching, modulating, and performing the synthesizer, all at the same time.
AudioCubes + SYNTHOR is the first digital modular synthesizer in the world where you can patch and affect parameters of the sound SIMULTANEOUSLY. Typically, in modular synth demos you see people turning knobs, and that’s it. The patch has already been made, because it would take way to long to set up on the spot, because of the physical nature of cables, as well as that some connections might work and other connections will not do anything at all. This has been improved upon in our synthesizer - you can patch using wireless connections between the cubes, no cables needed. And you can modulate parameters at the same time, using only two hands. And on top of all that, easy to define “patching” rules in our synthesizer imply that you can’t make connections that won’t do anything. It makes modular synthesis easier to work with and at the same time more expressive.
Another advantage of a digital modular synth is that you can have arbitrary module setups. You can have 10 LFOs and 3 wavetable oscillators if you want. But 1 minute later, you can load a different setup during your live show, and have 4 filters, 2 noise generators, a bunch of samplers and a step sequencer. With hardware modulars, your setup is hardcoded, and determined by the modules you can afford to buy and bring.
Do you want to learn more about how you can integrate SYNTHOR in your existing music and sound production setup? Please email me directly at bert@percussa.com.