phase puzzle (2017)

Developed shortly after Temporal Conduit Oscillator (TCO) and Multiple Contour Integrator (MCI), Phase Puzzle was a similar chaotic synthesis software with a focus on “meta-programming” and feedback. Where TCO explored extensions of Buchla and Hordijk’s design ideals and MCI explored the chaotic potential of wavetable synthesis, Phase Puzzle was an investigation of phase modulation synthesis, combining three oscillators, a delay line, a fluctuating random source, a pseudo-rungler, and a note quantizer to create glitchy bursts of animated sound.

Like TCO and MCI, Phase Puzzle utilized a scheme of performable global state storage/recall as well as global parameter randomization. The note quantizer served as a means of (optionally) quantizing pitch modulation data between the “secondary modulation” source and the “primary” oscillator—making it somewhat better-equipped to produce 12TET structures than were TCO and MCI. Also similarly to TCO and MCI, Phase Puzzle utilized internal feedback/feedforward processes to automate the stereo panning of several parts of its internal signal architecture…creating chaotic spatialization effects related to other aspects of its total state.

Phase Puzzle represented my first thorough explorations with phase modulation, ultimately serving as the groundwork for later hardware and software designs. It was never as “complete” as TCO or MCI, and ultimately was considerably less sonically varied and somewhat less gratifying to play in live contexts. As such, it was more or less abandoned shortly after its creation, and was never used in live performance.

Simultaneously with the development of Phase Puzzle, I began work on the MIGSI 2 Application, which eventually integrated the first complete version of the Temporal Reflection Interval Processor—which is quite similar in affect and approach to Phase Puzzle, albeit considerably more refined and performable. Additionally, more recent hardware developments explore similar approaches to phase modulation, including the Mapper system’s map01 Delta Scan Mapping Interface.