The brain module introduces artificial intelligence to the Eurorack world. Or, to put it more loosely: The brain module is a platform for experimenting with machine learning and artificial neural networks. It makes machine learning audible.
Example Oscilloscope Screenshot – blue line: melody to be learned – orange line: current learning status of the AI – yellow line: learning lesson (timing of the melody)
The brain module was designed to work with control voltages. It has two main inputs: xin and yin, and it has one output: yout. The way it works is quite simple: to get the net to learn something, you give a reference value (most often representing time) into xin (yellow) and the expected/desired output to yin (blue). The net will present its current understanding of y at yout (orange).
Let’s take an example: The net is supposed to learn a melody. The melody is 3 seconds long. To train the net, we give voltage levels representing time to input xin (e.g. a slowly rising or falling LFO ramp) and the corresponding 1V/oct voltage levels to yin. At the beginning yout will provide random voltages, but after a while and many learning cycles yout will get closer and closer to the expected values. The melody will become clearer and clearer until it is almost perfectly reproduced.
This is of course the simplest and most straight forward way to use the module. It could be interesting to start with more complex experiments, use other parameters than time for the x-Axis and so on. Not to mention that combining multiple modules in an even more complex setup.
All technicals details, information on what the other jacks and knobs are good for and how to assemble the kit can be found in the manual.
