State Machine

Virtual Boolean-Logic-Only Synthesizer

State Machine is a virtual modular synthesizer you can play in your browser. What separates it from other more conventional synthesizer approaches is that every signal of the system is either zero or one. Instead of patching together VCOs, filters, envelopes, and delays, you have things like logic gates, shift registers, flip-flops, and binary counters. In this way, State Machine is less like a modular synthesizer, and more like a primitive computer that happens to make sound.

The approach is inspired by Stanley Lunetta, and a practice of making synthesizers using CMOS 4000 series logic ICs, something we have also visited in hardware form in our project the 40xx Synth.