This Eurorack "Brain" Module Makes Learning Audible as it Puts Artificial Intelligence in Your Synth
Given a reference voltage and a desired output, the "brain" makes its machine learning process audible on its output jack.
Digital art and music duo Susanne and Leander Seige have designed a Eurorack-compatible module that adds a little artificial intelligence to your modular synth — by making the learning process of an on-device neural network audible.
"The brain module introduces artificial intelligence to the Eurorack world. Or, to put it more loosely: the brain module is a platform for experimenting with machine learning and artificial neural networks," Leander Seige explains of the device. "It makes machine learning audible."
The brain, part of the Seige's "any : frequency" family of designs, isn't generative AI in the modern sense — it's not designed to directly output audio itself. Instead, it's the network's intermediate processing that is made into a source of sound. There are two inputs, x and y, which represent a reference value and the desired output. The network then outputs its own closest approximation to the desired output — growing closer to the original the longer it runs.
"Let’s take an example: The net is supposed to learn a melody," Seige explains. "The melody is three seconds long. To train the net, we give voltage levels representing time to input xᵢₙ (e.g. a slowly rising or falling LFO ramp) and the corresponding 1V/oct[ave] voltage levels to yᵢₙ. At the beginning yₒᵤₜ will provide random voltages, but after a while and many learning cycles yₒᵤₜ will get closer and closer to the expected values. The melody will become clearer and clearer until it is almost perfectly reproduced."
"This is of course the simplest and most straight forward way to use the module," Seige continues. "It could be interesting to start with more complex experiments, use other parameters than time for the x-Axis and so on. Not to mention that combining multiple modules in an even more complex setup."
More details are available on the any : frequency website; the brain module itself is available on Tindie at $349 plus shipping from Germany.