2.5 The editions
2.5.1 Three editions
Swarm Synth V plays in three editions. The classic edition is the main version, 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). It is the work itself: every rule in it can be read from the swarm.
Beside it stand two special editions, equal to each other: Swarm Synth V : Club Edition (2026), for electronic dance music, and Swarm Synth V : Jazz Edition (2026), for a jazz trio. Both keep the swarm, its measures, its notes and its scores, and replace the classic beat with one clock that keeps the time for everything, while the swarm decides what plays on it. They put the sound first: the swarm still plays every part, but the parts are written for the dance floor or the jazz club. They translate the same swarm into the language of a genre, so some of their rules — phrases, fills, the groove, the swing — come from that genre, not from the swarm.
Each edition has its own look: classic the white paper, club the club theme, jazz IV's night (2.6). The key 0 steps through them, classic → club → jazz → classic; the controller's track buttons step back and forth, wrapping round at the ends, so classic and jazz are one press apart. A score chooses its edition (2.8). Into a special edition, its clock starts on a downbeat; back to the classic one, their 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. Dance music and jazz need one steady pulse. The club and jazz editions therefore run a clock of their 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 clock's tempo comes from the swarm: the faster the boids fly on average, the faster the music, from 70 bpm for a slow swarm to 160 for the fastest in the club, and up to 240 in jazz. The tempo follows the swarm over about two seconds, the way a band speeds up together, never with a jump; so in practice the max speed fader is also the tempo fader. Nothing else moves the clock, and there is no tempo by hand.
2.5.3 Club: 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 | an open hi-hat on the off-beats and a soft 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.
The drop itself — the beat, the blips and the bass — moves in phrases of four bars, as a dance track does. When the swarm asks for it (a large flock has held for about a bar), the drop waits for the next phrase; the bar before, a snare roll rises through beats 3 and 4, and the drop lands with a crash. When the flock breaks up, the drop plays the phrase to its end, a short roll closes it, and the breakdown begins with the next one. The swarm still decides; the music only chooses the moment, so the changes come where a listener expects them.
2.5.4 Club: 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, open | |
| shaker | any flock, or the jam | softly after the hi-hat, and more softly 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 | one on each beat; 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 an open hi-hat: a burst of high noise that hisses on for a moment between the kicks — the "ts" of house music. The shaker takes the steps around it as ghost notes: a cloud of very short, very high sine grains, like the crackle's, soft after the hi-hat and softer still before it. The kick stays the same on every beat, four to the floor; the groove comes from what sounds between the kicks, loud and soft. The more boids the largest flock holds, the more grains the shaker has; 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, but it is taken only on beats 1 and 3 and held until then: a rising flock steps up from chord to chord instead of sliding. 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, and only one on each beat: of all the encounters since the last beat, the strongest sounds, exactly on the beat, and the others pass in silence. Two boids meeting inside a flock play a short supersaw, held for up to half a beat and cut into 16ths on the clock — inside a flock, an 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 Club: 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 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). The tempo is the swarm's (2.5.2).
2.5.6 The jazz edition
The jazz edition plays the same swarm on the same clock as the club edition, but with a jazz trio instead of a drum machine. Its swing comes from the 8th notes: the first of each pair is held longer than the second. Its scale is A dorian. Its look is IV's night (2.6). The swarm leads the band:
| what the swarm does | what the band plays |
|---|---|
| no flock | only the first beat of each bar: the ride and a soft kick |
| one flock | the trio in a two-feel: the bass on beats 1 and 3, the ride on every beat, the hi-hat on 2 and 4 |
| two flocks | walking: a bass note on every beat, the ride's "ting, ting-a"; the 2nd flock comps piano chords on the off-beats |
| three flocks or more | the ride in 8ths, and brushes on the snare |
| the swarm's speed | the tempo, 70 – 240 bpm |
| the largest flock's height | where the walking bass heads; once there, it walks on the way the flock flies, up or down |
| its order (polarization) | the swing — aligned light, loose deep — and the chords' colour: aligned clear sevenths, loose tense chords |
| a new flock forming | a crash cymbal on the next beat |
| a flock crossing the grid | a clear bell on the next 8th, its pitch from where it crossed |
| every flock | its drone, struck on beats 1 and 3 and left to ring, like a pianist's chords |
| two boids meeting | at most one note on each beat, a ping that rings on in an echo |
| boids trembling | the crackle, louder than in the club |
The band changes only on the clock, and its line-up only in phrases of eight bars: when the flocks ask for more players or fewer, the drummer fills on the snare in the bar before, and the new line-up starts the next phrase, with a crash when it grows. The bass line, the chords' pitches, the swing and the tempo follow the swarm at once. So a flock forming is heard as a player coming in at the top of a chorus, never as a stumble.
- The ride is made like a drum machine's cymbal: six square waves at metallic ratios, filtered high, with a little noise — a short "ting" and a long shimmer, brighter the faster the swarm flies. The crash is the same metal struck hard.
- The walking bass is the club's plucked bass, played on the beat; on beat 4 it often plays a half step below its next note, as a bass player approaches a chord.
- The comping is an electric-piano chord: four notes struck at once, a bell at the start and a soft body after it.
- The brushes are noise through a band-pass: a swish on the off-beats, a slap on 2 and 4.
- The bell is a sine with a quiet octave and twelfth above it, ringing out for about a second — glass rather than metal.