Straw

straw is a simple FM synthesizer adapted to the monome interface. It can be used with any size monome from the 64 to the 512. 

The horizontal axis is pitch and a modal pitch map can be quickly generated on any base note, or you can edit the pitch map arbitrarily. The vertical axis is a modulation parameter that can be routed simultaneously to several destinations. Patch editing is very gratifying as everything is live all the time, so you don't have to re-trigger notes to hear the effect. This also opens the door to additional real time control. It is easily hackable. There are no polyphony/voice limitations. The downside is it isn't light on the processor. This patch consumes 20% of one core on my core i7. I'm using some hacked in support for the powermate knob to quickly make some parameter changes to broaden the range of timbres demonstrated. 





I finished the patch on Saturday night and resolved to make a video on Sunday. I had in mind something more musical for a demonstration, but I was losing sunlight, so this will have to do for now. I added reverb after the fact (Valhalla Shimmer), otherwise, you're hearing the real-time output.


Straw can be downloaded at the monome wiki. 20 years ago, I wished for the ability to design a purpose-built synthesizer/instrument in a specific configuration, and use an adaptable, non-specific interface to control that synthesizer. Today this is possible. I wish I could spend every day making things like this.