Circuit Garden offers purely analog electronic sounds that mimic nature

Synthesizers serve several purposes, including allowing a person to compose music. Although it is electronic music others may not consider to be music, many notes can create a lovely melody. The “Circuit Garden” by Kelly Heaton is a project that will make us think about nature and enjoy the electronic culture.

What you will hear are birds chirping repeatedly. In addition, there are different shapes of birds singing other tunes. The chirping isn’t annoying it offers a relaxing mood–that is if you are into stress relief music.

Designer: Kelly Heaton

The Circuit Garden shows off machine intelligence combined with human nature. The bird-shaped boards are not the only circuit items. Other shapes are mimicking different animal behaviors and sounds. You will hear more than just birdsong. There are also chirping crickets.

The designer has created analog electronic designs that generate realistic sounds. What you hear are not real birds. They are not even actual recordings as everything is electronic. These are just electric vibrations from artificial origin.

Kelly Heaton hopes to encourage more people and more discussion about nature, as well as electronic culture. Electronic hardware is the focus of this designer. She wants to go basic with the circuits as they are what allow digital media to happen.

Heaton thought in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration as she learned from Nikola Tesla. She says her unique art explores different concepts while allowing those circuits to vibrate in natural patterns. Heaton explains that the “Circuit Garden pays homage to electrical oscillation, specifically the astable multivibrator, which is my favorite method for generating life-like waveforms.”

Heaton describes her work also as printed circuit birds. They are self-contained sound generators and are purely analog. There are no software or no audio recordings used here.

The Circuit Garden is like a collection of synthesizers producing almost natural sounds of birds and other insects. To change the quality of a song or sound, resistance in the circuit is adjusted. Designer is showing us the beautiful analog hardware that can be achieved. It is still possible to explore the category of creative electronics. We know it’s just there, but it takes a lot of effort to preserve the art.

There are many synthesizers that can produce stunning electronic music. We have a few favorites here including those by Love Hulten: the foldable synthesizer, the EC1, and the TE-LAB. We realize we’ll never live without music or sound effects that’s why we value these synthesizers.