Episode 40 : The Art of Virtual Synth Design II : Surge XT : Open Source Powerhouse !

The Art of Virtual Synth Design II :  Surge XT : Open Source Powerhouse ! "It's fun working on stuff that works!" Hosted by Vin Curigliano of AAVIM Technology, I am joined by guest co-host Pete Brown of Microsoft and special guest Paul Walker, aka BaconPaul , who is a maintainer and one of the largest contributors on the Surge Synthesizer Team, and also a contributor to several other open source audio projects, including the CLAP plugin standard. We discuss Paul's early history with music and technology , and how he found his way to joining and forming the Surge team, and his ongoing role there. We cover the history of Surge XT, and its initial development by Claes Johanson which he sold as a commercial product via his original company Vember Audio ( Released in 2005).  We discuss how it eventuated that the development went down the open source route , and how that makes it unique regards allowing access to the source code to all developers, over more traditional closed loop development of other major synths. We discuss how the Surge Synth Team formed, the importance of the team dynamic and tools, (both technological and sociological) , other projects in the Surge Synth Team beyond Surge XT, and the constantly expanding catalogue. We take a deeper dive into the features and direction of Surge XT, its unique architecture and feature set, and discuss area's like MPE, CLAP, MT-ESP (Microtuning ), accessibility, etc. We also discuss the current state of Music Technology and the incoming Zeitgeist being driven by AI, and much much more.  Host & Guest Links : AAVIM Technology : www.aavimt.com.au DAWbench : www.dawbench.com Microsoft : www.microsoft.com Pete Brown : https://twitter.com/Pete_Brown Surge Synth Team : https://surge-synth-team.org/ VO : Andrew Peters : www.andrewpetersvo.com Music Themes : Original DAWbench VI Theme Music composed by Rob John : Independent Music Productions : http://www.indmusicprods.com DAWbench Radio Show ReMix by Erin McKimm : www.erinmckimm.com All Rights Reserved : © AAVIMT 2025