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Patch matches
(This extends beyond the vast iOS world of synths.)
On a synth, there's only a few knobs or controls, and only a few distinct positions those knobs or controls can be in. Switches, jacks, sliders and knobs. Some knobs can be fine tuned, some make almost no difference whether it is on 1, 1 and a half or 2, or perhaps 9, 10 or 11 - it depends what the parameter actually is, and what effect it is going to contribute in a synth's overall current state.
If you took it to an extreme, imagine a synth with only a few switches and a few pots. Let's imagine each pot could only have eleven positions (0 to 10), not the infinite variation between min and max that a rotary or slider pot really has. Ridiculous, I know, but bear with me. How many distinct combinations of settings can there be? If someone comes up with a patch, and calls it something, then someone else independently comes up with a unique patch and calls it something else, but the two turn out to be the same set of settings, then what's to happen?
Now most decent synths have a lot more controls than just a handful. Are there instances where a patch on a synth turns up more than once, because someone made a patch, and someone else made a different patch, but they turned out to be not different - not copied, not plagiarised, just accidentally the same. There's only so many parameter settings.
On the flip side, what about different synths? What about the notion of intentionally coming up with the same patch, but on more than one different synth. The result should be audibly indistinguishable across each synth producing that same named patch. Are there instances of that? Obviously this is contingent on the synth architecture, but a lot of synths have a lot of synth in common.
If there aren't that, I think there should be.
Comments
There was an app sonicZoom released several years ago by Robert Tubb as part of a study into this topic for FM synthesis which used 10 synth parameters connected to layers of grids you could zoom in on to select a particular sound.
I think the viability of such a project will depend largely on how many synth parameters are involved due to the rapid proliferation of possible patches with each parameter you add.
Perhaps some sort of naming scheme based upon parameter dimensionality similar to that used for web address to names might be the way to go?
Out of interest, which synths are easiest to convey a patch you've made to another person with that synth that might want to experience your work? It just occurred to me, as I was using DRC this morning for a thing (arpeggiator fought against by NodeBeat of all things) that I've no idea how to make this patch available, should the need arise. We could do with a list of 'trapped' synths in which the patch can never escape, vs those that make it easier to pass the goodness around.