Sound experiment: DNA-controlled synthesizer

Posted on Aug 22, 2021

Here is the result of a sound experiment, in which I used DNA to control a synthesizer.

The progressive reading of a DNA sequence controls a synth oscillator by feeding it with MIDI notes and controling both the wavetable position and the filter cut-off. The opening of the filter actually reflects the one of the DNA helix (GC percentage) at a specific position. I used the Orbsynth software from Hexachords, and converted DNA information to MIDI signal with Python. The DNA sequence is from the species I study in my daytime job, as a biologist.



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