Software synthesizers, or softsynths, changed everything about the way that home-recorded music is made.

Yet many softsynths require musical, electronic and even hardware knowledge that many people don't possess. One can find few more frustrating experiences than to download a new softsynth, only to find that its graphical user interface (i.e., control panel) resembles a microwave transmission factory rather than a musical experience. Other softsynths demand understandings of music theory or mathematics which many do not possess.

Two freeware synths, though, transcend the limitations often imposed by musical convention and by the relentless tech orientation of some devices. These two programs are Coagula Light and Slicer.

Coagula Light is nothing like most softsynths. It's an "image synth". It takes bitmaps drawings, and turns them into sound. Its inventor, Rasmus Ekman,
created Coagula Light to operate as a color tone organ. Its catchphrase is "Now you Can Hear the Light".

It's amazingly easy to use. One draws a bitmap drawing, using either Coagula Light itself or outside software such as MS Paint.Then one loads the bitmap into Coagula, and asks Coagula to "render" the drawing into music. Soon, the synth is creating sounds from the field of colors---a fascinating synasthesia of color made into music.

Coagula Light is a very simple concept, but it can afford endless opportunities to learn and grow. One need know nothing about music theory to play it.
One need only be able to draw simple bitmaps. The resulting music can range from busy noise to haunting ambient melodies. One can use Coagula to create wonderful samples for use in other forms of music and in remixes.

The "sampler" is another form of softsynth related software which can cause the non-musician, non-technocrat endless frustration. It can be disheartening to open a piece of software, only to find and endless bank of knobs and vaguely identified functions. While electronic music should be liberated from the conventions of analog sound, some softsynths are harder to use than any analog instrument ever could hope to be.

Enter IXI Software. IXI Software is not a company per se, but instead an alliance of software designers and musicians who spread the gospel of free music. As their website says (which they kindly permitted me to quote), "We are interested in free and open music software in all senses. Free as in "free beer", free as in "free speech" and free as in "free jazz". The last "freedom" being the most important one.

IXI Software releases free synthesizers expressly designed to liberate music-makers from the twin straitjackets of music theory and electronic genius.
As their site says: "We are interested in the computer as a workshop for building non-conventional tools for musicians, i.e. not trying to imitate or copy the tools that we know from the real world of instruments and studio technology". They carry this idea to its logical conclusion--to encourage artists to exchange home-created music with one another freely, rather than adhere to traditional music-distribution models.

Perhaps the best free download among the many fine IXI products is the sampler Slicer. One puts a wave file (perhaps even a file created with Coagula Light) into Slicer. Slicer slices it into eight pieces.

The most amazing thing that Slicer offers is a user-friendly way to manipulate the sliced sample. The software presents a colorful bit of what looks like graph paper. One manipulates boxes of string art, to alter the sound. A female voice may morph into a deep male voice. A lute solo may become a microtonal ambient drone. The possibilites are endless, and useful for not only traditonal electronic music, but also for other genres, and in particular rock and dance music.

I interviewed the folks at IXI Software, and asked them how they came up with Slicer. I got the response back:
that Slicer arose from experiments with granular synthesis. The IXI folks discovered, in a failed experiment in this technical area, the
"funny idea to pile up loops of
the same sound over each other with some special way to set the sound
slices. Sometimes colliding with limits and trying to misuse tools can
be a great way to get strange and suggestive ideas".

Slicer is indeed strange and suggestive--but more importantly, Slicer is useful software. The author of this article regularly uses Slicer for everything from morphing conventional melody to
changing voices into ambient drones.

Free synthesizers need not be confusing and unexplainable. Rather, sound pioneers like Rasmus Ekman and the IXI Software development team create freeware that anyone can use, regardless of their musical or technical background. As the computer continues to liberate music, so also are creative designers liberating software from the conventions that traditional music imposed.

Coagula Light and Slicer show that synths built on bitmap conversion and string-art-display sampling can create evocative and useful music, no MFA in Music required.

One can find more information and download opportunities here:

Coagula Light: http://hem.passagen.se/rasmuse/Coagula.htm

IXI Software:
http://www.ixi-software.net

Nice article, I've used Coagula Light before, but never heard of IXI Software. Thanks for the info!

Thanks for the kind words on the article. The IXI folks are great,of course as freeware makers but especially as visionaries for a different way for music to go.

Just stumbled on Coagula a week ago and being a graphic artist and musician it was as if an entirely new color was discovered. This has got to be the most amazing tool I've used this decade. I will be posting music made with Coagula soon.