MATRIXSYNTH: cellF


Showing posts with label cellF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cellF. Show all posts

Sunday, February 21, 2016

cellF - Video Documentation


Published on Feb 18, 2016 Guy Ben-Ary

The cellF has been featured numerous times here on MATRIXSYNTH. This video gives the most extensive overview yet.

"cellF is the world’s first neural synthesizer. It is a real 'wet-alogue' Synthesizer. cellF’s “brain” is made of a biological neural network that grows in a Petri dish and controls in real time an array of analogue modular synthesizers that were custom made to work in synergy with the neural network. It is a completely autonomous, wet and analogue instrument.

In 2012, Guy Ben-Ary received a fellowship to develop a biological self-portrait, and decided to portray one of his juvenile dreams: to become a rock star.

Guy Ben-Ary had a biopsy taken from his arm, then he cultivated his skin cells in vitro in the labs of SymbioticA at UWA, and using Induced Pluripotent Stem cell technology, he transformed his skin cells into stem cells. When these stem cells began to differentiate they were pushed down the neuronal lineage until they became neural stem cells, which were then fully differentiated into neural networks over a Multi-Electrode Array (MEA) dish to become - “Ben-Ary’s external brain”.

The MEA dishes that host Ben-Ary’s neural networks consist of a grid of 8×8 electrodes. These electrodes can record the electric signals (action potentials) that the neurons produce and at the same time send stimulations to the neurons – essentially a read-and-write interface to the “brain”.

Human musicians are invited to play with cellF in special one-off shows. The human-made music is fed to the neurons as stimulation, and the neurons respond by controlling the analogue synthesizers, and together they perform live, reflexive and improvised sound pieces or “jam sessions” that are not entirely human.

The sound is specialized in the space to 16 speakers. The specialization is controlled by the neural network and reflects the special pockets of activity within the petri dish. Walking around the performance space offers the sensation of walking through Ben-Ary’s external brain in real time

In its world premiere (On October 4th) cellF jammed live with Darren Moore, Tokyo-based experimental jazz drummer, in a unique improvisation. His music was fed into the neurons as electrical stimulations and the neurons responded by controlling the synthesizer, creating an improvised posthuman sound piece.

cellF is a collaboration between artists Guy Ben-Ary, Darren Moore, Nathan Thompson and Andrew Fitch, and scientists Stuart Hodgetts, Mike Edel and Douglas Bakkum.

For more info – http://guybenary.com/cellf"

Monday, October 12, 2015

The cellF Project


Published on Oct 12, 2015 DJjondent

"This is an experimental project involving control of a synth with live human nerve cells.

The very top of the central square tower houses the live human neurons. It's an incubator which maintains a constant temperature & atmosphere.

The neurons are grown on an array of 60 electrodes which connect the cells to the synthesizer.

For more info:
http://djjondent.blogspot.com.au/2015..."

Follow-up to this post.

Monday, October 05, 2015

nonlinearcircuits cellF - live human neurons based modular synth


cellF hall Published on Oct 5, 2015 cirtcele

"A very quick behind the scenes look at the setup for the 1st performance of cellF. This was filmed on a very crappy old mobile-phone, so def. not HD. More info here - http://guybenary.com/work/cellf/"

via nonlinearcircuits

"On Sunday 4th October the 1st live performance of cellF was given. cellF is an analogue modular synthesizer controlled by live human neurons grown on an electrode array...

Regarding the electronics:
The neuron dish has 60 electrodes, each of these is hooked up to and amplifier circuit to boost the neuron signals by approx 100x and then a comparator. Neurons chatter away constantly but they put out bursts of triggers every now & then, called action potentials, and it is these triggers we want.
So the black panel contains 60 processing circuits to extract the action potentials (triggers) and then we use these to control the synth.

The panel also has 16 stimulation input to send signals into the neurons (reduced to a max of 1Vp-p and approx 7ms trigger). To prevent feedback loops there are 60 analogue switches to momentarily turn off the processing circuits when a stim signal is sent. All this took quite a bit of work to develop and get right, but it is now fkn great!
During the performance (I was not the performer, we had a real musician for that - Darren Moore), I had to check and adjust the comparators a couple of times as the neuronal activities changes over time. Otherwise the synth was untouched and just communicated with the Darren, his drumhits were fed to the stim inputs. During the performance, it was very clear the neurons were responding to stimulation. It was great to listen to and must have been an incredible experience for Darren. A pro vid & audio crew recorded the event, so I will add links when they become available.


The actual synth section contains only NLC modules:
6 tri-core VCOs
4 LFOs
4 LPGs
8 VCAs
2 VC spring reverbs
2 diff-rectifiers
2 jerkoff chaos
4 281 EGs
2 Sauce of Unces
2 7 stage clock dividers with staircase
2 quad logic with resistor ladder & VC slew
2 Quad oscillator / low pass filter
2 choppers
2 Delay no mores
2 Vactrol PiLLs
2 DP filters
2 FF chaos
2 Sloth chaos
2 offset mixers
4 voltage controlled matrix mixers (32 VCAs in each so 128 VCAs)
2 multiband distortions
12 envelope generators
8 Frigates (pitch2CV and pitch2gate modules)
Plus a bunch of mults....think thats it"

Sunday, December 07, 2014

cellf action & voice 2


Published on Dec 7, 2014 cirtcele

"Having more fun with these two panels, plus a bit of help from Bill"

Friday, December 05, 2014

cellF action & voice


Published on Dec 5, 2014 cirtcele

"a bit noisy (as usual)..."

Thursday, December 04, 2014

cellF action delay no more


Published on Dec 4, 2014 cirtcele

"1st play with this panel
Some more info here - http://nonlinearcircuits.blogspot.com..."

Monday, October 20, 2014

cellF voice 3, chopper 1 & hyper wien 1


Published on Oct 20, 2014 cirtcele

"5 or so 2 minute excerpts from a 1 hour patching session. All sounds and CVs generated by the cellF panel"

chopper 1

Published on Oct 20, 2014

"having fun with the Chopper, an analogue switch that switches depending upon the voltage levels of the 2 signals passing thru it."


Published on Oct 20, 2014

"hyper chaotic circuit controlling VCO & low pass gate"

Wednesday, October 08, 2014

A visit to NonLinearCircuits, Perth, Western Australia.


Published on Oct 8, 2014 DJjondent

"I visited my friend Andrew F on the weekend.

He kindly showed me his studio/workshop. This is a short recording I made on my phone while there. The synth making the ambient sounds is a The CellF Voice Synth.

More pics can be seen here:
http://djjondent.blogspot.com.au/2014..."

Wednesday, August 06, 2014

cellF 2 - Using Organic, Biological Neurons to Control a Modular


Published on Aug 6, 2014 cirtcele

"We hooked some living neurons up to a nonlinearcircuits modular. the neuronal noise was amplified & fed thru filters, also used to CV a VCO. The action potentials (triggers) were used to drive the sequencers. We used a pulse divider to provide a feedback signal to the neurons and they seemed to appreciate this a lot :) Thanks to Nathan for the footage."

Part 1 here.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

cellF 23july2014


Published on Jul 23, 2014 cirtcele

"This is the 1st time we connected neurons to a nonlinearcircuits voice synth. The neurons are grown on an array of 60 electrodes. In this test we just used 1 electrode and amplified the signal to get a 5V neuronal noise signal and extracted the action potential using a comparator to get triggers."

cellF 2 - Using Organic, Biological Neurons to Control a Modular

Published on Aug 6, 2014 cirtcele

"We hooked some living neurons up to a nonlinearcircuits modular. the neuronal noise was amplified & fed thru filters, also used to CV a VCO. The action potentials (triggers) were used to drive the sequencers. We used a pulse divider to provide a feedback signal to the neurons and they seemed to appreciate this a lot :) Thanks to Nathan for the footage."

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

nonlinearcircuits cellF voice test


Published on Jul 15, 2014 cirtcele

"1st patch with the 84hp eurorack panel - 2 tri-core VCOs, 2 low pass gates, 2 EGs, Sauce of Unce, 3 VCAs, 2 LFOs, VC Reverb, difference rectifier, chaos."
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