Performance synthesizer

DIN Is Noise

DIN is a sound generator you can play from your computer keyboard, as well as your MIDI keyboard. But it's not a professional re-creation of an analog classic, or a modern reinterpretation of classic subtractive synthesis. Instead, DIN feels more like a cross between an atonal experimental performance tool and the classic game Rez on Sony's PlayStation 2. This is because it's immediately playable with an interactive, vectorized graphical style that illustrates the pitch and volume of each note you play. Hit a few keys on your keyboard, and a large square for each tone appears and immediately starts to shrink, unless you hold the key. You can then control the pitch of whichever notes are playing with the mouse cursor. This gives you considerable control over the pitch as a note decays, much like you might get by waving your hands over a theremin. It doesn't always sound pleasing, but it's always interesting.

The sound engine itself is also equally rich and esoteric with a set of unique features. The basic sound contains a waveform you can change, with some unusual features such as Bézier curves and control points for editing even the sine waveform. These are the sounds you hear when you launch the application and start hitting the keyboard. But there's more to this than playing simple notes. There's a microtonal mode, for instance, which generates pitch oscillators that follow a modulation path across a grid, creating dense and often ominous clouds of closely pitched sound – great for soundtrack work. Similarly, there's also a mode for generating binaural drones. These are often used in relaxation videos because of the way pitch changes in the left and right channels subtly phase against each other. This is simpler in harmonic content than the microtonal mode and difficult to generate with an ordinary synthesizer.

Project Website

https://dinisnoise.org

The sounds emanating from DIN are as unique as the visuals that appear and animate as you play.

Remote access