For 12 years I helped develop audio plug-ins at Wave Arts, a company founded by MIT Media Lab Ph.D. and DSP guru Bill Gardner, as well as Camel Audio. I am currently in the Music Applications group at Apple.

Synthasaurus is a synthesis engine which enables one to create emotive, life-like animal vocalizations. It was my master's project while I was enrolled in the Music Technology program at Northwestern University. It employes a variety of synthesis techniques: the vocal cords are simulated with a pulse oscillator which can be manipulated in timbre with amplitude and frequency moduation. There is also a physical model of a dynamic vocal tract, which can be used to create interesting articulations.

Synthasaurus Paper (PDF)

Mac OS X standalone version - MAX/MSP runtime (brief instructions: after starting it up, double click the "dac~" object at the bottom to set up your audio I/O, then click on the big "DAC On/Off" button, then double click in the presets grid to hear the different sounds.)

Synthesized Sound Examples: Baby Animal Baby Animal 2 Bark Call Chirp Critter Frog Growl Irritated Pigeon Nasal Call Scared Scream Snarl Squeal

Here is a collection of small music applications developed with the Cycling '74 MAX/MSP environment. They can be run as a standalone application- find more info at the Cycling '74 Website.

SynthFollower 1.1: For Mac OS X. Will detect the pitch of an incoming singal (say from a bass guitar), and generate a MIDI chord corresponding to a key signature you select...no MIDI pickup required. When used with a MIDI controller such as the Behringer FCB1010 to simulate a sustain pedal, you will hear the chord when the program receives any Note On event with a velocity of 100, and will shut off when Note On with velocity 0 is received. You can also set up a controller value to simulate the sustain pedal. I use this to accompany basslines on Stick or bass guitar with synth chords. This is a very rough prototype with no documentation so feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.

Version 1.0 - added ability to use controller messages for sustain pedal.
Version 1.1 - added ability to select audio input channel.

Dynamic Sound Organism: Mac OS X. Uses AM and FM synthesis to generate some evolving sound textures. You can control the volume of the AM and FM components, and have the FM component auto trigger some swells or trigger them manually.