Genetic Vsti patch developement

[funkadil]

Hi! Im a little drunk right now, but besides that here is what I have to say. I guess I am posting this in the host forum because ideally this idea would be a vst wrapper or host which performed these functions. I came up with this idea while dreaming but I forgot to post it earlier, so now I am.

The basis is that one could(pretty easily) develope a tool to allow patches of any synth to be made of any type and without any user experience(well, little). Imagine having a synth open. This synth has above it 6 or so tabs which represent the mutations of the engine. You, as the user, would click on each of these and test them out on your midi keyboard, the one you liked best would "live" and the others would die. Another iteration of the evolution of your patch would begin. and this would adopt the "genes"(set of parameters, chosen at various settings and ranges before hand) of the chosen patch. This patch would create new mutations and such would allow you to refine a patch to your desire(you play god in the dance of evolution) with little or no idea of how this synth creates sound in the first place, and with amazing and graceful ease.

Now, I do understand what I write is not revolutionary. It is a very big branch of computer science at the moment. I would just love to see this come to the vst world so I urge you bored developers to get out there and do this because it would be very much fun to have. THanks!

(if you need me to elaborate on this i would be happy)

[VitaminD]

Orion has had this feature for quite awhile.. albeit not as refined as your approach..

it can be helpful though to be honest I dont use it too often.

[funkadil]

Ah! good to know. I would love for a very refined and basic wrapper. Minihost-like situation.

EDIT: On the page it says. Preset Genetics: Using two presets of your choice, or two random presets, this feature breeds new presets - it's a fun and easy new way to explore all the possibilities of your VST instruments.

Not really at all what I am trying to say. I am meaning to say a darwinistic situation. For example, there is one man who wrote a book about ecology or something and there is this program that creates creatures which are based on certain parameters. These can be mutated. The program shows you the original along with 8 others and allows you to choose which will survive. Its very cool. Im sure there are several examples on the internet, ill try to find them. I think people have done this in a very primitive way with sound too. Like with C or language like this using primitive additive or FM synthesis.

[John Vulich]

Chainer and energyXT both have built in randomization and "breed" functions for patch generation.

[mistertoast]

The Polac VSTi loader for Buzz lets you breed patches. I love it.

[funkadil]

lol. everybody, please read again. This has nothing to do with breeding presets. You could start off with a random patch for all I care. now what was the book called???? he mentioned the idea of setting up his computer in his garden and having the butterflies choose the evolution of the creature.

[HunterKiller]

Chainer and energyXT both have built in randomization and "breed" functions for patch generation.

True But don't ever use that function on the Synthi A-vs

[VariKusBrainZ]

there are a few graphics generation apps that take this same approach

[mistertoast]

Yeah, but I think breeding patches that work is better than your drunk idea. :->

First of all, it could take a lot of endurance to get past the random patches. Second, what if you get one note that sounds good and every other note sucks?

:->

[John Vulich]

Yeah, but I think breeding patches that work is better than your drunk idea. :->

[funkadil]

there are a few graphics generation apps that take this same approach

Can you think of what they are. Id love to post them and show these fools what Im talking about.

[funkadil]

Yeah, but I think breeding patches that work is better than your drunk idea. :->

First of all, it could take a lot of endurance to get past the random patches. Second, what if you get one note that sounds good and every other note sucks?

:->

You would be amazed at how well this works, at least with graphics. If you have a nice one, the original breed is always left for your choice to select for living again. This will produce new mutations. Or you could have more than 6 mutations so your less likely to get all bad mutations. This is just a preliminary Idea. But I KNOW it will work if somebody puts it together correctly.

[funkadil]

http://www.genarts.com/karl/papers/siggraph91.html - heres some example maybe?

Oh yeah. It was Richard Dawkins that gave me this idea!

EDIT: http://www.alternativescience.com/biomorphs.htm

here is exactly what I am talking about. they are called biomorphs! but we must make synth-patcho-morphs program!

EDIT2: try this java program: http://www.phy.syr.edu/courses/mirror/biomorph/ It does exactly what I am talking about.

[Xnah]

What you are referring to is artificial life and genetic algorithms, right? And Richard Dawkins wrote "The Blind WatchMaker", which is a great read about this.

Actually MHC (mhc.se) had implemented this in some of their earlier synths (Fatsondo I think): Create 12 'random' patches, select the ones that you like most, and create 12 new random patches (the next generation), based on the 'winning' genes that you chose .

(EDIT: I typed too slow, you already found it )

[funkadil]

Hmmm I could not find a demo version for fatsondo. But thanks for the heads up! and for telling me the name of the book!