GenSynth (Master's Thesis) School - Spring 2015

Collaboratively Evolving Novel Synthetic Musical Instruments on the Web.

Crafting novel synthetic musical instruments has required both in-depth knowledge and intuition of sound synthesis learned only through significant experience in the domain. The Genetic Synthesizer Project, GenSynth, is a Collaborative Interactive Evolution (CIE) online platform designed to determine in what ways software can be developed to ease the challenges inherent in designing these instruments. Utilizing Picbreeder's collaborative evolution approach, GenSynth aims to enable both advanced and novice users to discover, explore, and share their instruments. GenSynth meets the discover, explore, and share platform goals, in addition to providing an open source base for future research.

GenSynth utilizes a new NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies variant, Audio Synthesis NEAT, which is the first instrument evolution approach that utilizes

• a graph genotype
• NEAT crossover
• multiple waveform oscillators with attack, decay, sustain, and release envelopes
• hidden layer filter and composite nodes
• multiple connectable parameters per node.