polyends
One of the reasons I'm cranking these pieces out is that this is the time of year when I use my personal budget from Columbia to buy some new gear. The best way I know to learn how to use the new gear is to... use it. Duh.
One of the things I try to do is to employ the new machines in ways that run counter to the 'use-pathways' embodied in their design. This is a huge output-determining factor in much music technology. The idea that the tech itself is 'transparent' is simply wrong. I even talked about this in my doctoral dissertation way back in the 1980's (see papers here and here as examples, and also my first go-round with the Ableton software here). It's kind of fun trying to subvert the creative paradigms embodied in various musical hardware and software.
I had read some good reviews and was intrigued by a new synthesizer-box made by a company called Polyend, the Polyend Synth. It had eight different sound-producing algorithms! Physical models! Granular synthesis! Many voices! Such a deal!
So I got one delivered, and it surely was a very powerful synthesis engine, but man-oh-man did it have some heavy 'this is how music goes' assumptions baked into the design of the unit. While scanning various tutorial videos on the web, it seemed like the demo music all sounded like this.
Which is fine, except for that desire on my part to alter what's possible
with a given technlogical device. These three little etudes represent
my first attempt to deconstruct the interface a bit. The Synth seems
so powerful that I'm sure I'll be using it in the future.
Brad Garton
April, 2025