When the Synth Surprises You: Playing B2B With Yourself
Hey friends,
Last week I fell down a rabbit hole. You know the one — you sit down to "quickly try something," and three hours later the room is dark, your tea is cold, and you've completely lost track of time. For me it started with a simple question I keep coming back to: what else can the Push 3 Standalone really do?
The itch I keep scratching
Native Ableton devices are great, but I'm always hunting for tools that sit somewhere between generative and controllable — something that opens up a wide, explorative sound field but still feels intuitive to play live. Think Fors Dyad, or Iftah's Sting 2. Tools that give you something back instead of just doing exactly what you tell them.
That's when I stumbled across the Brain Recordings Collection by Emiliano Pennisi, a sound artist and Max for Live developer whose work I've followed for a while. And it scratched the itch immediately.
Sounds that have a mind of their own
These devices are built in native gen~ and use things like chaotic attractor synthesis and nonlinear oscillator networks — sound generation you don't bump into as often as your usual subtractive or wavetable stuff. Emiliano describes them as self-organizing systems that take time to settle, accumulate energy, and develop their own behaviour.
In practice that means they evolve on their own. You don't fully control them — you shape them. You nudge the macros, and the system drifts somewhere you didn't quite plan. At first that feels strange if you're used to being the boss of every parameter. Then it becomes addictive.
Playing B2B with yourself
Here's the part I love most. When I combine these generative modules with my own sounds and more intentional playing, the whole thing comes alive. It feels a bit like playing a back-to-back set — except the other artist is the system itself.
The tools do their thing, they surprise you, and you react. You're not performing at the gear, you're having a conversation with it. (Real b2b sets with another human are still more fun, of course — there's nothing like reacting to another person. But this comes surprisingly close on a quiet studio night.)
For this jam I ran eight devices through my Ambient Atelier FX rack — seven from Brain Recordings, one from my own Melodic Movement pack. Long sustained progressions that shift over time, dense evolving atmospheres, and a field-recording sample player I let drift at random speeds for texture. I just sat there and played, and let the system pull me somewhere.
Let yourself get lost
I think we underrate this kind of aimless exploration. Not every studio session needs a goal, a finished track, or a deadline. Sometimes the most creative thing you can do is open a tool you don't fully understand and follow it down the rabbit hole. You almost always come back with something.
So this week, maybe pick one tool you've been curious about and just play. No outcome required. See where it pulls you.
What's the last tool that surprised you? I'd love to hear what's been pulling you down your own rabbit holes lately.
Stay creative,
Milan (KVNDRA)
P.S.: This little ambient jam is the latest Melodic Minute. If you want to support the series and help keep it going, Patreons get every episode a week early: https://www.patreon.com/kvndra
