Music From A Cat, AKA ‘A Furry Orange Synthesizer’

Reader Aaron Apter says “My cat Vincent is actually a synthesizer. A fluffy, orange synthesizer.”

The rather unusual cat-patch uses heavy petting as acoustic impulses, which act as a stimulator for physical modeling synthesis via Impaktor. Not the most practical patch, but Vincent seems to be into it.

17 thoughts on “Music From A Cat, AKA ‘A Furry Orange Synthesizer’

  1. I would never let a cat near my Synth…it might get hair in it!

    Anyway this was pretty funny, and even though the cat bit him he still kept making music… What a trooper!

    1. You are one lucky guy. Mine likes Reason (as backup with my MIDI keyboard) so when she’s coming over I usually don’t even get to read any Synthtopia since my computer has been hijacked 😉

      then again; maybe we can both benefit here. You should try show your gf Reason and I’ll try introduce mine to Synthtopia. Who knows what’ll happen 🙂

  2. The only thing missing from this video IMO: how did he do it ?

    I noticed some delays between tapping and the notes and quite frankly I can well imagine how that could have happened. But I’m interested in how he set it up.

    1. I was just using my iPad’s mic with the newly-released Impaktor app. I ran a stereo 1/8″ cable from my iPad’s headphone out to the stereo in of my camera (you can see my plug in the cable at the beginning). I monitored the audio from the headphone output jack of my camera. Impaktor uses acoustic sound impulses caputred from the onboard mic to excite sound modules within the app. I set the mic’s sensitivity to ultra high so I could gently pat on Vince’s furry torso (which I’ve always noticed had a peculiar “thunk sound”) and still trigger the sound modules. I’m also using the built in looped so I can layer the sounds and patterns. Hit me up if you have any more questions.

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