synth.is: Evolving Sounds That Don't Exist Yet

This video is AI generated from our notes:

We're exploring synth.is, a project that uses **evolutionary algorithms**—inspired by nature's own processes—to **discover entirely new sounds**. This goes beyond current AI music tools that primarily remix existing data, leading us to genuinely novel timbres and **virtual instruments** no one has heard before.

Our current tools can often keep us tied to the past, offering variations of sounds that already exist. Kromosynth aims to expand the creative palette by simulating serendipitous discovery, much like how accidental innovations like the distorted electric guitar or the TR-808 drum machine shaped music history.

Imagine a **living map of sound possibilities** instead of static preset banks, constantly growing and evolving. You could inject a reference sound from your track to evolve complementary textures, or set behavioral goals like "percussive but organic" and watch families of sounds emerge to fill that niche. The **collaborative aspect** is important; your feedback helps evolve not just sounds for you, but contributes to the entire ecosystem. We're especially focused on generating **full sample-based virtual instruments** from these evolving genomes.

We've built an early prototype, an interactive **phylogenetic tree viewer and explorer** available at **phylogeny.synth.is**. Here, you can trace the family trees of evolved sounds, hover over nodes to hear them, and experiment with sequencing tools.

This project is currently in a research phase, transitioning towards practical applications. We're actively **seeking your input** to understand how evolutionary sound discovery can fit into real creative workflows. Would you use these evolved sounds in your projects? How would you like to interact with the evolution process? What format would be most useful—individual samples, full instruments, or something else?

Join us in exploring how we can discover the **musical genres of tomorrow**, unconstrained by the sounds we already know.

Sound Different™, Join the Evolution: https://synth.is/