<html class="apple-mail-supports-explicit-dark-mode"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">I remember the month the models got smarter . I had been working on a phase distortion oscillator since 2024. I tried GPT and Gemini and Copilot, and they all copied ideas from a short list of sources. Worse, when I asked them why the oscillator sounded bad, they shrugged and said you can’t run an old algorithm on new hardware and expect it to sound authentic.<div><br></div><div>But then in August I re-ran all the constraints and requirements I learned on a large Gemini model. It calmly addressed my concerns, like hey a lot of you guys ask me for this, and confidently explained a “recipe” it had given other developers. </div><div>This was the first embedded code I ever ran that actually generated a pure sine wave that could gracefully morph into a saw or square wave with what sounded like subtractive synthesis. I could mix in the window function to produce that sweet digital faux resonance at whatever level I wanted to.</div><div>Before that, all the AI attempts produced a freaky FM-like distortion (caused by looping through a series function or table slightly out of sync with a single wave cycle), which tbh sounded good if you were into kinky stuff like that, but no way was it Cosmo synthesis. They missed that NOT distorting the waveform except in one single way was the objective and blamed me for not hiding the noise with a filter, or lower sample rate, or using a 12 bit DAC. Oh I loved how the old models made excuses and were so damned lazy. </div><div>Also I discovered most good Casio voices were 2 voices stacked; I really never thought about it, because I never owned a CZ.</div><div><br id="lineBreakAtBeginningOfSignature"><div dir="ltr">Benjamin Tremblay</div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Apr 23, 2026, at 7:20 AM, bbob via Synth-diy <synth-diy@synth-diy.org> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="auto">I am a retired analyst/project manager, and I’ve found my experience writing specs for programmers to be a perfect skill set for writing AI prompts. </div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Apr 23, 2026 at 7:03 AM Mike Bryant <<a href="mailto:mbryant@futurehorizons.com">mbryant@futurehorizons.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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In the mainframe days there were programmers and systems analysts, and the analysts tried to define the problem space adequately for the programmer to create an error-free program. </div>
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So now we're all systems analysts <span id="m_-2648506802063784281🙂">🙂</span></div>
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<div id="m_-2648506802063784281divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size:11pt" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> Synth-diy <<a href="mailto:synth-diy-bounces@synth-diy.org" target="_blank">synth-diy-bounces@synth-diy.org</a>> on behalf of Tom Wiltshire <<a href="mailto:tom@electricdruid.net" target="_blank">tom@electricdruid.net</a>><br>
<b>Sent:</b> 23 April 2026 10:42<br>
<b>To:</b> Brother Theo <<a href="mailto:brothertheo2014@gmail.com" target="_blank">brothertheo2014@gmail.com</a>><br>
<b>Cc:</b> <a href="mailto:synth-diy@synth-diy.org" target="_blank">synth-diy@synth-diy.org</a> <<a href="mailto:synth-diy@synth-diy.org" target="_blank">synth-diy@synth-diy.org</a>><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [sdiy] AI code generation</font>
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<div>I've also had similar experiences with Claude doing something that would have taken ages in only a few minutes, so these tools are here and thy#re going to be used and if you want to be a "modern programmer", you're going to be using
AI assistance in one way or another.<br>
<br>
That said, I've also had experiences where Claude produced stuff that simply wouldn't work and was wrong in fundamental ways. You absolutely have to check and you absolutely need to make sure you've got good code verification and debugging in place.<br>
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Computing and programming has always been a fast-changing world requiring constant re-skilling to keep up, and that's still true now. Stand still and some new kid who just learned the new tools will get the job instead of you.<br>
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> On 23 Apr 2026, at 10:14, Brother Theo via Synth-diy <<a href="mailto:synth-diy@synth-diy.org" target="_blank">synth-diy@synth-diy.org</a>> wrote:<br>
> <br>
> Hey everyone,<br>
> <br>
> Touchy subject that I need to talk about. I just had Claude AI generate a CSound program for a complex effect. Not only did it hit all the points I gave it, but it even included some stuff I forgot, like a sound source, but also gave me a few ideas on how
to operate it. And it took less than 15 minutes to do.<br>
> <br>
> I know a lot of you will rebel against the idea of AI. I was one of you. But this experience has opened my eyes to the possibilities. This piece of code would have taken me hours to develop. Claude did it in a fraction of the time.
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> <br>
> My buddy got me into this by telling me his experience. He took a code base for a 2007 synth and had Claude make changes and add features. Claude even found bugs and fixed them without prompting. The new code is working and is being tested.
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> <br>
> It is a brave new world. Should we feel sorry for the coders?<br>
> <br>
> -- <br>
> Timothy Ressel<br>
> 909-423-5962<br>
> FutureRetro Synthesizers<br>
> <br>
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