2.5 The club edition
2.5.1 Two editions
Swarm Synth V plays in two editions. The classic edition is the instrument described so far: logic first, every sound traced to something the flock did, and a beat that comes from the flocks crossing an invisible grid (2.4.5). The club edition, Swarm Synth V.02 Club Edition (2026), is a special edition for electronic dance music: it keeps the swarm, its measures, its notes and its scores, and replaces the beat with a club beat — one clock keeps the time for everything, and the swarm decides what plays on it. It puts the sound first: the swarm still plays every part, but the parts are written for the dance floor.
The key 0 (or the controller's track buttons) switches between the editions at any moment; a score chooses its edition (2.8). Into the club edition, its clock starts on a downbeat; back to the classic one, the club's sounds die away before the classic beat takes over.
2.5.2 One clock
The classic beat's tempo is each flock's own speed, so every flock beats its own time, and two flocks make a polyrhythm. Club music needs one steady pulse. The club edition therefore runs a clock of its own — a tempo, four beats to a bar, sixteen steps to a bar — and every sound of the beat starts exactly on a step. The swarm never moves the clock; it decides what plays on it.
2.5.3 The swarm as the arrangement
The flocks are ranked by size. The largest carries the beat; the next three add percussion, each in its own sound; any further flocks add nothing of their own, so that the beat stays readable however the swarm splits.
| what the swarm does | what plays |
|---|---|
| no flock | only the pulse: the beat's low tone, soft, on every beat |
| packed too tight to flock, trembling (the jam that crackles) | the beat goes on, with the hi-hat and the shaker: a crowd too dense to flock still dances |
| one large flock | the beat — half time while it is slow, four to the floor when it is fast |
| … flying as one | a blip on beats 2 and 4 |
| … holding a large part of the swarm | the bass, its note from the flock's height |
| any flock | a hi-hat on the off-beats and a shaker after it, and before it too when the flocks are fast |
| the 2nd, 3rd and 4th flock crossing the grid | a plucked bass, an acid blip, a burst of noise |
| every flock | its drone, in stabs on the steps |
So the form of a piece follows the swarm: when the boids scatter, the drums drop out down to the pulse (a breakdown); when flocks gather, the hi-hat, the shaker and the stabs come in (a build-up); when one large flock forms and flies fast and aligned, the beat, the blips and the bass all play (the drop).
The arrangement follows the swarm continuously but is heard only on the clock's steps: a part comes in on its next step, the bass changes its note only with a new bar. A flock forming or breaking up therefore sounds like a part entering or leaving the track, never like a stumble in the time.
2.5.4 The sounds
All sounds of the club edition are made in the program, without samples: sines, saws and pulses through filters, folded and saturated waves, and noise from a fixed formula. Nothing uses chance, so the same score and seed give the same take, as in the classic edition. Everything is in one key, A minor pentatonic.
| sound | plays when | on the clock | ▶ |
|---|---|---|---|
| the beat | one large flock (a quarter of the boids or more), or the jam | beats 1 and 3, or every beat when the flock is fast | |
| the pulse | the beat is silent | every beat | |
| blip | the beat plays and the flock flies as one | beats 2 and 4 | |
| hi-hat | any flock, or the jam | the off-beats | |
| shaker | any flock, or the jam | after the hi-hat, and before it when the flock is fast | |
| bass | the largest flock holds a large part of the swarm | the off-beats, a new note each bar | |
| plucked bass | the 2nd flock crosses a line of the grid | the next 16th | |
| acid blip | the 3rd flock crosses a line | the next 8th | |
| noise burst | the 4th flock crosses a line | the next beat | |
| drone stabs | every flock | patterns on the steps, by the flock's speed | |
| notes | two boids meet | free; inside a flock cut into 16ths | |
| crackle | boids tremble | free, as in the classic edition | |
| the rhythm together |
- The beat. A square sub: a low sine with a soft square wave under a filter that closes as the beat dies away — a deep, buzzing electronic kick. Its punch is a fast fall in pitch at the start, not a click; then it holds and dies away slowly, a body a subwoofer can push. It sounds on E1, and the octave knob moves it. When the beat is silent, an electronic drum keeps the floor on every beat: the pulse, a tone that bends itself, falls in pitch and is clipped hard. The beat and the pulse are the loudest sounds of the club edition.
- Blip, hi-hat and shaker. On beats 2 and 4 a short blip, in the middle register. On the off-beats a closed hi-hat: a very short burst of high noise. The shaker takes the steps around it: a cloud of very short, very high sine grains, like the crackle's. The more boids the largest flock holds, the more grains; the faster it flies, the higher they are — a big fast flock shakes densely and brightly, a small one sparsely.
- The bass. A filtered saw on the off-beats. Its note comes from the height of the largest flock — the higher the flock, the higher the bass — and changes only with a new bar. The longer the flock is stretched, the brighter the bass.
- The percussion. When the second, third or fourth flock crosses a line of the grid (2.4.5), it adds one note on the beat's grid. The second plays a plucked bass, low like a bass guitar: a sine folded and saturated, bright at the pluck and soon round. The third plays an acid blip: a pulse through a resonant filter that opens and closes in a moment. The fourth plays a short burst of noise grains, tuned to its note. Their notes come from the flocks' heights, their place in the stereo field from where the flocks are.
- The drone as a beat layer. In the classic edition a flock's drone holds as long as the flock exists (2.4.1). In the club edition it sounds in stabs on the steps: a slow flock plays two stabs a bar, a faster one a syncopated pattern, a fast one a busy figure; a compact flock plays short stabs, a spread one longer ones. Its pitch follows the flock's height, in key and above the bass. Its sound is a supersaw — five slightly detuned saws through a filter: the looser the flock, the wider they spread; the longer the flock, the brighter the filter.
- Notes and crackle. The notes come from the same encounters as in the classic edition (2.4.2) and are tuned by their flock's drone, so they follow it into the key; in the club edition they sound an octave lower. Two boids meeting inside a flock play a short supersaw held for half a second and cut into 16ths on the clock — inside a flock, every encounter turns into a little rhythm; boids meeting outside a flock play a ping, three harmonics that start bright and turn round. The crackle works as in the classic edition (2.4.3 – 2.4.4).
2.5.5 The mix
Under each beat the drones, the notes, the crackle and the bass duck and swell back — the breathing of a club mix — so that the low end belongs to the beat. By hand the player adds what a DJ adds: the tempo, which starts very slow and can be raised as the set builds, and the volumes of the beat layer (everything on the clock, the beat itself, the blips, ticks, shaker, bass and percussion), the drones and the notes, each on its own fader (2.7).