Some very interesting thoughts & perspectives here.
I‘ve been reading up on synthetic biology lately and saw this thing at the Beyond Festival a while back, where a guy hooked up mycelium to sound generators.
I‘d love to be able to use bio feedback from my body to create or affect the sounds I‘m creating and playing…eg my heart rate modulates the filter cutoff (the most natural of LFOs lol), the electric current in my finger tips serves the waveform creation/modulation (looking at you, Lyra).
Also interesting I find biological matter as sound source, that picks up nuanced shifts in states as one interacts with the biomatter. This is especially interesting in the context of aforementioned synthetic biology as cellular structures could be grown that are eg highly responsive the light / touch / or some other stimuli.
The whole topic of AI is also interesting to transpose to synths, although I‘m less excited by predictive elements than by e.g. conversion of (very) complex non-sound-based source material into sound (eg image recognition software that converts pixels into waveforms).
I really like the simplicity and tactility of subtractive synthesis, maybe what is actually subtracted could be played with as well (eg a filter that subtracts complex waveforms rather than the usual, more orderly frequency patterns such as lowpass, highpass, band etc).
I like @Fin25‘s enthusiasm about FM synthesis. Personally I associate FM with the DX7 and thus with that 80s sound, but I know that I‘m being clueless here
The non-linear nature of frequency modulation synthesis is actually very exciting indeed, especially if coupled with an open mind in regard to the expected “aesthetics of sound“.
I also liked the suggestion re recording nature…I did this retreat a while ago where we had to carry a chair out into the woods, find a spot we liked and then sit there blindfolded for 3+ hours and just listen…man, the complexity and depth of the sounds of the natural world are mind boggling. Exploring some sort of direct-sampling based synthesis (a la Vlad‘s Soma for example or the Koma Field Kit) could be very interesting.
EDIT: eg…imagine setting up microphones in forests around the world and stream those 24/7 in realtime to synths/sample based synths around the world. So every time I turn on my synth and I turn the “forestillator” knob, I switch between different live streams around the world that I can then modulate & play in real time…aiaiaiai ![:slight_smile: :slight_smile:](https://www.elektronauts.com/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=9)
Thanks for the inspiring and open minded responses, you make me wanna head out today to field record and then experiment on the OT… ![:slight_smile: :slight_smile:](https://www.elektronauts.com/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=9)