Whilst locked in a fierce battle with a misbehaving VCA which refuses to cooperate with my attempts to give it a release control once prompeted with a pulse wave, I had an idea for a separate, more simple synthesiser than my initial plans.

Containing several oscillators outputting to a stereo summing amp via VCAs, each VCA clocked by a different square wave oscillator, (seeing any similarities here…?) I aim to create a variety of alarm-like noises. Then by adding a stereo spring reverb inside the unit, with send pots for each oscillator (post VCA) and also several LPFs, I will have generated a burglary simulator: the sound of being inside some large unwelcoming complex that has detected your presence within it as anomalous. Users can perform with it by bringing alarms closer and further away with the reverb, creating a virtual space that can only be accessed via the ears. I find this concept very interesting, as it can then be performed in a variety of ways. An alarm could sound very faintly from deep inside the complex, lots of filtering, lots of reverb, and then another could sound, closer, louder, less filtered. This could continue, and the alarms could shift and move in ways that makes the space seem non-euclidean

This varies from my original concept simply by the addition of a spring reverb+VCFs and the simplification of the VCAs, but seems to transform the concept entirely, making it a lot more ‘sound arts’ in the process. The only thing needed now, is to buy a spring reverb. Perhaps when payday hits……