http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdmH6slZ0ac

GeLoFi has published an interesting interview with Eric Archer, an Austin, Texas creator of unique electronic instruments.

In the interview, Archer talk extensively about what inspires him and the thoughts behind his electronic instruments:

Pattern generators are amazing. You just have to build an LFSR (linear feedback shift register) and play with it to realize these things just spew out aesthetic information, of however much complexity you desire, up to the point that you catch a glimpse of the beautiful horizon between repetition and randomness. Of course it’s impossible to generate random information with logic, but with digital feedback the patterns can become so complex that they appear random to humans.

The digital algorithms I use are simplified versions of cryptographic key generators. An encryption key ideally looks like noise. But, take this same information and design a filter to reduce it’s complexity, and you gain access to its insanely detailed sub-structure.

I’ve made a number of experimental circuits that make aesthetic output from digital feedback. The MuseWave (2005) synthesizes complex waveforms directly. The Bird Box sequencer (2008) plays linear drum patterns. The Fibonacci Generator (2009) is my favorite so far. It creates note sequences and glide information to control a monophonic analog synth.

I also used the Fibonacci Generator to synthesize vector graphics for video, above. It creates unreal, twisting animated pseudo-3D knots.

We’ve featured Eric Archer and his creations previously, including the Mini Space Rockers drum machines. See the Devices page on his site for more examples of his work.