Sentient Synthesizer 1.1.0

Sentient is a synthesizer that learns from the sounds around you. A self-organizing neural network listens through the microphone and grows wavetables from what it hears: street noise, voices, music, birds. You play these wavetables as notes and use them to move pitch, panning, drive and the filter. Every Sentient becomes unique to its owner and to the places it has listened to.

Sentient runs as a standalone app and as an AUv3 plugin inside your favorite host. It responds to MIDI keyboards, including MPE pitch bend, and shares its memory between the app and the plugin.

HOW IT WORKS

When a new sound is analyzed, the neuron that best matches it updates its stored waveform and swells more than the others. Nearby neurons also update, but less strongly, so similar sounds settle close together and the sound changes smoothly as you move across the network.

Two grids represent the two hemispheres of the network. The left one learns timbres, the shape of a single oscillation. The right one learns contours, the way loudness rises and falls. Each cell is a neuron. Tap a cell to choose the neuron whose wavetable the active row will play. An orange dot marks it, and the display above shows the wavetable exactly as it sounds.

THE INTERFACE

The controller with the eyes is the learning system. Hold it to start or stop learning: open eyes mean the network is listening. Drag vertically to change the learning rate and horizontally to change how strongly the winning neuron pulls its neighbors. You can see this in the number of open eyes and the width of the pupils. While Sentient learns, it stays silent and the network visibly swells.

Below the grids are six rows, each marked with a Russian letter. The first, `?` from `generator`, plays the wavetable as a note; its sliders set volume and the fundamental frequency. Hold `?` to open an ADSR envelope editor. With finite sustain and hold on, notes repeat in their own rhythm and turn into melodies.

The other rows are modulators. Their sliders set depth and rate, and the letter names the destination: `?` pitch from `podstroika`, `?` pan from `panorama`, `?` drive from `drive`, `?` filter frequency from `chastota`, `?` resonance from `rezonans`. Tap a letter in rhythm to set the rate by tap tempo.

The display above the grids shapes the active row. Drag sideways to set the start phase, drag up or down to smooth the wavetable, hold it to turn antialiasing on or off.

The controller with the stars is the filter. Drag sideways for lowpass, bandpass or highpass, drag up or down for drive. Hold it to share one filter between all notes; a green ring shows the shared mode. The curve beside it sets cutoff and resonance.

At the bottom is a keyboard of eight keys drawn as Lissajous figures, curves made of two harmonic oscillations. Each figure shows the ratio of its note. The closer you touch to the center, the louder the note. Above the keys are `?` hold from `uderzhanie` and `?` tuning from `podstroika`, which lets you retune each key across 64 just-intonation steps. Hold the level meter to record what you play to a WAV file.

MEMORY

The controller with the planets moves through time. Drag it to browse saved memories; each one keeps the whole instrument, including the network, settings, tuning and playing notes. Double tap to return to the present. Hold it to open a menu marked with Russian letters: `?` save from `sokhranit`, `?` delete from `udalit`, `?` close, shaped like a cross, plus arrows to export, import and replace memories as files.

The planets tell time symbolically. The crescent shadow shows the time of day, the moon's position follows its 27-day orbit, and the satellite circles like the ISS.

Tap the UFO at the top for a quick tour of the screen.

License: Commercial