Patch Histories and Forking Paths: Version Control as Creative Practice in Modular Synthesis

Abstract

This dissertation addresses a gap in software for multiplayer modular synthesis, demonstrating how version control systems and web technologies are well-suited to closing it. The rationale rests on two observations. First, a modular synthesizer is, by definition, an interoperable system: individual modules can be recombined, swapped, or even distributed among several performers to create a shared instrument. Yet in practice most hardware and software setups are optimized for a single player, leaving little support for real-time, many-hands interaction. Second, a defining pleasure of modular synthesis is that the instrument can be rewired on the fly, transforming its topology mid-performance. Capturing those evolutions is notoriously difficult. Hardware musicians rely on photographs or handwritten patch notes, which rarely recreate a state with fidelity. Software modular synthesizers make it possible to save entire patches, but they record only the endpoints--full snapshots--without the in-between: the granular sequence of cable changes, button presses, and knob turns that give a performance its arc. As these incremental transformations are vital to how the instrument can be played, analyzed, and studied, the field needs tooling that treats patch histories as first-class data, editable and shareable across multiple players in real time.

Drawing on the three established generations of version control systems, this dissertation also posits a fourth generation, defined by the emergence of platform-based social coding and real-time protocols that support live co-editing of documents. A new musical instrument named Forking Paths is introduced to address this gap: a system that integrates software version control architecture into a virtual modular synthesizer to document the entire process of patching--creating patch histories. This capability facilitates new techniques in digital music performance, such as analyzing differences between knob turns across histories, merging gestures, isolating and looping segments of history, and branching from specific points for further exploration. Moreover, a real-time version control system enables the instrument to support multiple players from the ground up, facilitating participatory and collective patching of a shared modular system.