Drone
\ˈdrōn\

  1. an unmanned aircraft or ship guided by remote control or onboard computers
  2. to make a sustained deep murmuring, humming, or buzzing sound

Drone Synth is a sound synthesizer designed to play and manipulate an audio recording of a press conference delivered by Industry Minister James Moore. In his speech, Moore announces that the Canadian government awarded a 75 million dollars “investment” to defense technology firm L3-WESCAM for the development of the next generation of anti-terrorist surveillance and targeting drones, for use domestically and abroad.

An excerpt from the press conference speech is played in a loop by the synthesizer. Using the knobs and switches on the control panel, users can transform M. Moore’s voice into ominous, glitchy drones. Turning the knobs from their default positions changes internal parameters in a granular synthesis engine as well as an oscillating bandpass filter. The synth allows for the generation of a broad sonic palette solely derived from the source voice material. The controls were designed such that placing all the knobs in the middle position (ie: 12 o’clock) returns the sound to a clear playback of the speech. As a result, the device can either highlight or obfuscate the contents of the speech according to user interactions.