Symphonia: Gothic Groovebox

How can we reduce the barrier of entry to expressing oneself musically? Formal instruments require time and effort many can't afford. Musical toys don't feel expressive. For this reason I built Symphonia. Click to visit the stand-alone webpage, or scroll to the bottom of this page for an embedded version. A short description of Symphonia follows.

What is Symphonia?

This groovebox opens on a unique layout meant to evoke flowers / solar systems / lily pads / mushroom spores. Each of these elements represents the drums, melody, or effects. The elements should feel touchable and invite experimentation.

There are limitations for the experimental radial view there aren't on the classic view: e.g., the melody can only control one note per beat and all accessible notes are in the scale. Since the classic view is always available, I wanted to try balancing expressiveness against ease of use on the radial view. By using the randomizing tools and a little fiddling, catchy tunes begin to emit. You can download the MIDI or audio files for use elsewhere, I'd be delighted if you're inspired.

Stylistically, c'est de moi. I've been playing with extracting taste from self-reported media habits and this is the extraction of my taste applied to the app. At first the style was a placeholder, but I grew to like it and ended up leaning heavily into the theme(s) in the presets.

Any disclaimers?

I built this groovebox using a variety of LLM and agentic AI tools over the course of a weekend. The use of those tools allowed me to express myself, and with that power I created a tool others can use for expression. That's the future I'm pulling AI towards.

Go make some music!

I've been having a blast exploring the sounds Symphonia can make, and I hope it brings you joy too. Send me any fun loops you make!