Well, my synthesiser is finished. And despite the initial excitement of my first instrument, I can’t help but feel that it is limited and bland in its construction. It is an ‘original’ (as listed in previous blog posts) synth perhaps in that it does not exist in the commercial world of synthesis, but perhaps that is for good reason. It is a rigid and restricting design, suited to only a small sliver of sound construction desires. It bears fruit in very slow, shifting polyrythms, but beyond that it feels like a very narrow-minded design. This is not to say that it is going nowhere: with light-controlled resonant filters, A/R envelopes, and a stereo output I think that it may yet become interesting.

The notion of modularity is worming its way into my head. I ought to make an instrument that encourages curiosity and the playful redesigning of the circuit that is presented. I think with its hinged front panels, my instrument (as yet unnamed) encourages curiosity, a desire for comprehension and exploration. It encourages repair, also, by not having its guts locked away behind a myriad of tiny screws. These concepts were both very present in my mind when designing the enclosure. However, I feel that its rigidity in use is a result of its limiting signal flow and lack of general building blocks rather than a bad overall design.