Pondular, Kevin Ferguson’s entry for the KVR Developer Challenge looks quite unconventional.
Kevin explains:
The grid on the screen is your “pond.” Playing notes or clicking creates ripples in the pond. The friction and viscosity parameters control how the ripples move and evolve, and the motion in the pond affects the sound of the synth.
This synth is really nice to play with. The interaction with the pond is playful and quite a bit mesmerizing. Oh, and it sounds great too!
The pond can be controlled in a number of ways. The number of squares can be changed by setting the amount of rows and columns. Frict sets friction and controls how fast ripples die out. Visc sets the viscosity which changes the size of ripples to small (fast moving) and big (slow moving) ones.
The delay effect can be turned off if you prefer to use external effects and MIDI controls can be mapped (or learned with your hosts’ MIDI learn tools).
The ? control is my favorite. It creates a random synth patch and control map. I just love synth with good randomize controls, so thumbs up for that.
Another nice feature is that the mod wheel changes colors used in the pond. Pondular also allows you to make your own control maps.
I still have many entries to check, but Pondular made a great first impression. You can download Pondular from the KVR Developer Challenge page.
(you need a KVR account to download, so go register if you don’t have one yet!)
