map02/21 (2023)

Mapper (2021–ongoing) is a series of electronic instruments, designed to explore the emergent properties of nonlinear, chaotic audio structures and arbitrarily re-mappable user input controls. The first (relatively) complete Mapper instrument—map02/21—combines the map02 Delta Scan Mapping Interface + Windowed Temporal Drag Processor with the map21 Multiple Vector Source + Translation Matrix.

map02 is a sound-generating synthesis structure that derives inspiration from instrument designs by Don Buchla and Rob Hordijk—namely, the Buchla 400 and Blippoo Box. It borrows techniques from 1970s/1980s computer music (e.g. lookup table-based wave shaping, phase modulation, and Karplus-Strong-esque techniques) and presents them in the form of a complex feedback network.

By inducing feedback between nodes in the internal synthesis structure, the user may discover that the apparent parameterization—that is, the mapping of a hardware control element such as a knob or slider—seems to change; and that, depending on the relationship between the many accessible parameters, said parameters' influence on the resulting sonic behavior continuously evolves. A knob that once seemed to alter pitch, for instance, may change in context to suddenly control many aspects of a sound simultaneously.

Through exploration of these nonlinear, ever-changing mapping structures, the user may discover a unique flavor of sound and interaction: one that favors unpredictability, surprise, and an embrace of the sounds of DSP "failures" (stuttering, aliasing, noise, and all manner of peculiar synthesis phenomena).

map21 accompanies map02, and provides an extra layer of arbitrarily re-mappable user control. By combining a pair of joysticks and sixteen unique random number generators with an instantaneously randomize-able data routing matrix, map21 offers a way to interact with map02's emergent sonic behaviors through additional layers of abstraction and obfuscation.

As of January 2025, map02/21 development has been paused in order to focus on newer instruments.