About peerSynth
Welcome Hey, think about this:

If it is possible to make virtual war by multi-player games it should be possible (and of course much more creative) to produce virtual music by a multi-user instrument. And: If it is possible to share files thru a p2p network it should be possible to share live played musical gestures in the same way.

Welcome!

So, welcome to the world's first p2p multi-user network synthesizer peerSynth! Welcome to a new development of büro </stelkens> the author of the famous granular synth crusherX-Live!
Concept

peerSynth

peerSynth will connect you live and in real-time with other musicians out in the internet world. peerSynth allows you to build up your own private or public world wide floating live peer to peer network. The Network can be the one of your next LAN-Party or simple your slow Modem-Internet-Connection. Not to distribute your old music collection! But to combine and distribute your and the peers ideas, creativity and musical feelings!

peerSynth will provide you with a special instrument which allows you to generate really extreme sounds, controlling them with a few mouse-clicks, with your MIDI-Device or MIDI-Sequencer. For sound generation you can choose DCO or Sampler-Mode. A Database will hold and sort your wav- or mp3-sample-files. If a peer is connecting, you will see and hear him live thru a new popping up instrument. You can chat and jam with him. Also the peer will see and hear your actions. And then imagine: Not only two peers can connect: Several peers can connect and distribute their musical actions at the same time. Build up your own virtual world wide band! Welcome to your first Network-Band!

Because peerSynth generates the sound of each peer locally there is no need for much network bandwidth. If a peer chooses a Sample-File it is automatically distributed in the background to the other peers during your playing. This means even if you are connected via a modem to the internet there is no leak of the real-time feeling. And: peerSynth comes with the sound library peerSound with nearly 300 local sounds!

You can generate new mp3-Files (e.g. with a attached analog microphone) or record your and the peers session to a local mp3-File. You can distribute that file to the other peers during your session. All files will be stored proper in your and the peers database that can be simple edited by using the browser. If new peers connect to running sessions they are automatically updated. A log file generator will generate html-logs to create automatically overviews about your sessions. Sure you can distribute and receive any file to your peers.

And the best: It is secure! You are only exchange data with your peers and to no one else. It depends on you if your session is public or private.

Why are you waiting? It´s free, it`s easy! Step into the new world of peerSynth. You don`t really need this help-files or the simple tutorial, just start peerSynth and start jamming!

Hear you soon on the peerSynth Network!

peerSounds peerSynth comes with nearly 300 brand new and cool sound samples that can be used during a peerSynth session without the need of any file transferring over the network.

Most sounds were designed by two famous sound designer:

"CYCLICKSAMPLES" (cyclick.samples@ntlworld.com)

and

"The Electronic Garden" (www.theelectronicgarden.com)

Some samples used with permission of the Computer Music Magazine (www.computermusic.co.uk)

Please check out the peerSound licence.
Session Server If you like to join a public Network you can use the public session server that is hosted by the author, büro </stelkens> for you. This server runs 24h a day and can be seen as a global session scheduler. Here you can look if someone else likes to jam and, if you like, you can leave a mail address for further contacting. And the best: This service is absolutely free and very secure (without any ads, strong encrypted data exchange). For details take a look at the session server tutorial.
Background To learn more about the history of collaborative music making and the techniques that are used inside peerSynth please take a look at the authors ICMC2003 research paper.

This paper was presented during the ICMC2003 in Singapore (29 Sep - 4 Oct). Please feel free to download this ICMC 2003 Paper from the authors website.

If you like to step deeper in the field of network music please refer to the author's doctor thesis. You will find an abstract (sorry, only in German) of that commercial eBook here.