SylvainPoitras
Philosopher by training, trombonist by habit. Sylvain Poitras makes music, instruments, software, comics and films that keep circling back to the same idea: circularity, self-reference, and the blurry line between a thing and its name.
Selected works
Figs. 1–4 · swipe →
Catalogue of works
30 entries, including this one
2026
This catalogue
software
website · ongoing
A catalogue of works. Since it is also a work, it has to list itself, which is where you are now.
2025
Repeater Orchestra for Norns
softwaremusic
norns script · textural delay instrument
A delay instrument that builds dense clouds of repeating audio from up to 50 tempo-synced delay lines, each with randomized timing, gain and panning. It is a port of trombonist Bryant Smith's Repeater Orchestra web application to the monome norns.
The norns version adds hardware control and new functions: a freeze that locks the delay buffers into an infinite loop, a dry/wet mix, and dry monitoring that stays independent of the input gate, so you can keep playing over the cloud without feeding it. The video shows the original web version in 2021, replaying a short improvisation on Spitfire Audio's Trumpet Fields instrument.
2025
Xbox Adaptive Joystick MIDI Bridge
hardware
Teensy 4.1 · USB MIDI controller
A USB MIDI bridge that turns two Xbox Adaptive Joysticks into MIDI control surfaces, for accessible music-making, live performance and general MIDI control.
A Teensy 4.1 reads both joysticks directly as a USB host and gives each one its own MIDI channel: the X and Y axes send control changes and the six buttons send notes. At startup an assignment mode, confirmed by the onboard LED, fixes which joystick gets which channel.
2021
Looper's Delight 2020 Compilation
music
compilation · released 1 April 2021
Sylvain Poitras contributed the track Trumpet Forest to this collection of live-looping performances, organized by Michael Peters to showcase the live-looping music community.
2021
whisper mysterious life
music
EP · released 5 February 2021
An exploration of the poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar. The tracks are inspired by three of his poems: Longing, An Old Memory and Life.
2018
Trombilation
music
compilation · Faux Amis Records · released 3 November 2018
A collection of trombone solos by nineteen of the world's most innovative, experimental and cutting-edge trombonists, as well as some traditionalists and classical players. For some it is their first solo recording; for others, a new one in a long line.
Sylvain's contribution, Cicada river chorus, documents one of the first performances with the stereo pedalboard version of the meta-trombone.
In the words of Philip Corner:
So-many trombones in-the-world! They made-me learn-it in HighSchool i wanted the fremchhorn but they needed long-arms. As fate woud hav-it, a blessing. (Howmany newmusic horn players do-yu-know?) But o the trombonists! I knew ther wer a-lot but i did not know them, all-ov-them. Now i know-more. Manymore. And i am there---here!--- among many of my good-old-frends "bonys". And since i do-not hav any mor old recordings--- Hilary and Jim hav used-up all my music and i am not playing anymore I write a new score for my new-frend Rutger, and he iz playing.it. (ths iz goood) -----
2018
CVditto / MIDIditto
hardware
Hitchhiker Laboratories · looper mod
A modification that lets the TC Electronic Ditto looper be controlled by CV and, later, by MIDI. The goal was a hardware rig that records two loops of different lengths at once from the same source, which no commercial looper allowed.
The footswitch is replaced by a mini-jack wired to an opto-isolator, so a 5 V gate "presses" the pedal, which makes for interesting interplay with a modular synthesizer. An Arduino Pro Mini then turns MIDI CC messages into gates for two Dittos. It sets both output pins in a single instruction through port manipulation, so the two loopers act in exactly the same instant, and it can hold commands back so they land in time with an incoming MIDI clock.
2018
susSUB
hardware
Hitchhiker Laboratories · guitar pedal
A guitar pedal that emulates the Sustain Substitute function of the Echoplex Digital Pro. For a demonstration of this and other EDP functions, Andre LaFosse has documented the EDP in excellent, in-depth videos on his YouTube channel.
The susSUB implements Sustain Substitute with the Pigtronix Infinity looper. In principle it could work with other loopers that let you change the loop feedback level while overdubbing, but a lot depends on the particular looper's implementation.
The pedal does two things at once: it gates the audio so that sound passes only while the button is held, and it switches between two potentiometers that set the Infinity's loop feedback through its expression input. Two vactrols do the gating; their short turn-on and turn-off times give a fast, smooth fade with none of the usual switching clicks.
2017
Meta-trombone vol. 2
music
album · released 15 October 2017
All sounds recorded live in July 2013 during a European tour: at the first Paris Loop Jubilee, organized by Emmanuel Reveneau, and at the Alte Feuerwache in Cologne.
The meta-trombone is a performance system for solo trombonist, built from custom and off-the-shelf software and hardware, that analyses the performance as it happens. At the performer's choice, a note can be musical material as usual, or become a control signal that manipulates live recordings of the performance. The trombonist's gestures not only produce the expected sounds but also trigger algorithms that transform them, opening up new possibilities on the instrument while keeping the same "interface". Since 2012 the meta-trombone has been presented at festivals and concert series in San Jose, Santa Cruz, Toronto, New York City, Paris, Cologne, Ottawa and Providence.
2017
Where We're At 2017
music
compilation · Chain-Tape Collective · released 4 October 2017
Sylvain Poitras contributed the track Friends (old and new) to this release from the Chain-Tape Collective.
2016
Organelle Looper
softwaremusic
Organelle patch · Pure Data audio looper
An audio looper for Critter & Guitari's Organelle, adapting Marco Baumgartner's ALFALOOP, a delay-based looper that Sylvain had been eyeing since 2014 as the next addition to the meta-trombone. The lowest C key records: press it once to start, and again to close the loop and begin playback.
The keys from F chromatically up to C overdub, each quantized to a division of the loop length: 1/7, 1/8, 1/9, 1/11, 1/12, 1/24 and 1/48. An overdub starts on the next division for the key pressed and ends on the first one after the key is released, which allows some crazy rhythmic fun. The four knobs set feedback, ducking, a multiplier for the overdub divisions, and the dry/wet mix.
2016
Pd-Grids
software
Pure Data external · drum sequencer
A port of Grids, the topographic drum sequencer Eurorack module from Mutable Instruments, to a Pure Data external. It builds on Henri David's earlier conversion to a Max external. The video demonstrates it in a patch for Critter & Guitari's Organelle.
Running on the Organelle, Pd-Grids later became the percussion section of the meta-trombone pedalboard.
2015
Patterner
hardware
Hitchhiker Laboratories · modulation generator
A modulation generator meant to replace an expression pedal for guitar pedals that have an expression input.
Instead of the single potentiometer of a regular expression pedal, the Patterner has four slide potentiometers labelled 00, 01, 10 and 11. The two-digit code is the state (off = 0, on = 1) of the two left-most buttons (orange and purple); pressing them selects which slider modulates the pedal connected to the Patterner's TRS output.
Like the Abattoir, it can record a sequence played on its buttons and loop it, with a Speed control for playback. It is built on an Arduino Pro Mini with arcade buttons, and on the meta-trombone pedalboard it drives a Copilot FX Bandwidth, which turns its output into three control voltages.
2015
Abattoir
hardware
Hitchhiker Laboratories · vactrol VCA
The first effect pedal Sylvain built from scratch, after a year of learning electronics. At its core, the Abattoir is a vactrol-based VCA with an attack and release envelope generator. Besides the Attack and Release controls that shape the envelope, a Mod control affects both parameters at once. A toggle sets whether the purple button makes a sound (the input stays silent until it is pressed) or breaks it. Thanks to the envelope and the vactrol, it does so smoothly: it never clicks.
The Abattoir can also record and play back trigger sequences played on the purple button: the mechanically perfect, repetitive killing action that gives it its name. A Speed control varies the playback, and flipping the make/break toggle plays back the opposite of what was recorded, the ground to its figure.
It was inspired by the "Walker Manual Glitch Pedal" that Rick Walker described on the Looper's Delight mailing list in 2010, though it ended up quite different.
Code and schematics on GitHub ↗ About the pedal (blog) ↗ CV modulation demo ↗
2014
Matt Davignon …is sticks and rocks (Remixes)
music
remix album · released 25 November 2014
Sylvain Poitras contributed the track Ruined Gong to Matt Davignon's anniversary remix album, celebrating ten years of his unique approach to drum machines.
2014
Trip 8
comics
anthology · Éditions Trip
Sylvain contributed two pages to this collection of cutting-edge graphic narratives and academic writing on comics, published by Éditions Trip.
The story follows an astronaut floating out of control in space, drawn after NASA's photographs of the first American spacewalk. It is the prologue to Captain Dada, and sets the ontological basis for magic in that story's universe.
2014
Commodore 64
softwaremusic
In 2014 I became obsessed with the Commodore 64. It all started when I read a fantastic little book that discusses a one-line program from a variety of angles. After a couple of hours with emulators on my MacBook, I wanted to get my hands on the real thing.
My first computer was a Commodore 64. I vividly remember the happiness I felt that night in December when my father came home with all those boxes. It is probably the greatest gift I have ever received. Not only was the Commodore 64 a fun game system, it was my first introduction to programming, so going back to it meant writing 6502 assembly and making music on the machine itself.
I ended up with two machines. An early breadbin C64, like the one I had as a kid, got an SD card reader and JiffyDOS for programming: after many false starts since age 12, it ran my first machine-language "Hello World", followed by a high-resolution plot routine and variations on 10 PRINT. A C64G was modified for music, with a 1/4" audio output and a built-in LCD screen, meant to sit on a pedalboard and play MSSIAH's mono synth from my homemade guitar controller.
The project (blog) ↗ Early sketches on SoundCloud ↗ 6502 code on GitHub ↗
2014
Ring Modulator
software
VST plugin · OS X, Windows
A VST plugin, and an early exercise in audio programming, inspired by Moog's MF-102 Ring Modulator. Rather than its sound, it models what the MF-102 user manual says it does: a low-frequency oscillator sweeps the frequency of the ring modulation applied to the input. It is built with JUCE and the Synthesis ToolKit and released under the GPL.
2013
MIDI Looper
software
application · OS X
MIDI Looper is an application I built to fill a very specific need in my rig at the time: looping MIDI notes. It offers four tracks (loops) and is itself controlled by MIDI notes.
It was built for the 2013 European tour of the meta-trombone. In its Midi Loop mode, each note played on the trombone selects a loop and a starting position within it, remixing the loops live; MIDI Looper records those choices, so the remix keeps going after the phrase that created it has stopped.
It was made in Cycling '74's Max using the rcoll abstraction by Chris Muir, and is based on his collseq example patch.
2013
Looper's Delight 12-12-12 Project
music
compilation · released 31 March 2013
An album produced by a collective of artists to mark 12.12.12, the last date of its kind in our lifetimes. On or around that day, each of us came up with a piece on the theme of 12, many of them 12 minutes long.
2012–
Meta-trombone
musicsoftware
performance system
The meta-trombone is a performance system for solo trombonist, built from custom and off-the-shelf software and hardware, that analyses the performance as it happens. At the performer's choice, a note can be musical material as usual, or become a control signal that manipulates live recordings of the performance.
The trombonist's gestures not only produce the expected sounds but also execute algorithms that transform them, opening up new possibilities on the instrument while keeping the same "interface". Since late 2012 the meta-trombone has been presented at festivals and concert series in San Jose, Santa Cruz, Toronto, New York City, Paris, Cologne, Ottawa and Providence.
The idea dates from 2010, inspired by Nicolas Collins' trombone-propelled electronics and Matthew Burtner's Metasaxophone, and grew out of the guitar controller. The first versions ran on a laptop: a Plogue Bidule patch turned trombone notes into MIDI, which jumped the Mobius looper to new playback positions or changed its playback rate, with an iPod Touch mounted on the trombone as a heads-up display. It premiered at the Y2KX+2 Livelooping Festival in California in 2012, where Sylvain was a featured artist.
In 2014, invited to play IMOOfest in Ottawa with the IMOO Chamber Orchestra (featuring Jean Derome and Joane Hétu), he moved the whole system from the laptop to a pedalboard, with a Pure Data patch running on an iPhone. A 2019 redesign took it to stereo and brought in his own devices: the Abattoir, the Patterner, two MIDI-controlled Dittos, and an Organelle running Pd-Grids for percussion.
Development notes (blog) ↗ The 2019 pedalboard (blog) ↗ Live recordings Providence 2016 ↗ Cologne 2013 ↗
2012
Meta-trombone vol. 1
music
album · released 29 October 2012
All tracks recorded live in San Jose and Santa Cruz during the Y2KX+2 Livelooping Festival in 2012. Sylvain Poitras plays trombone and algorithms.
These concerts, as a featured artist, were the meta-trombone's first public outing. All sounds were made with a trombone, with different mutes and at times singing through the instrument; effects were limited to rate shifting in Mobius, reverb and some compression.
Sylvain Poitras thanks the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec for supporting his travel to California.
2012
OSCNotation
software
app · iOS
With OSCNotation, live coders and computer musicians can bring instrumentalists into their performances by sending OSC messages that display musical notation on their collaborators' iPhones or iPods. Rhythm and pitches are updated independently, so a pattern can be transposed while its rhythm stays intact, or vice versa.
It began as part of the meta-trombone, and was released for free in 2012. CDM and Music Tech Magazine covered it, and users contributed back: a SuperCollider tutorial by Carl Testa, and ChucK code for Terry Riley's In C and an Android version by Joel Matthys. Version 2.0 (2013) added note beaming and triplets; version 3.0 (2014) added iPad support, with several staves on one screen, at the request of composer Nicolas Fells.
In a 2013 concert with saxophonist Lee Konitz, pianist Dan Tepfer used OSCNotation to send notation from his MIDI keyboard to the Harlem String Quartet.
OSCNotation is no longer available on the App Store. Its source code can be shared on request.
2012
BreakOSC!
software
app · iOS
Play a game while making music! Every game event (the ball hitting the walls, the bricks or the paddle) can send OSC messages of your choosing over Wi-Fi. Create your own levels with the level designer, and set the level sequence and the number of balls.
BreakOSC! was Sylvain's first iOS app, released in 2012, and he used it in his own music: on Game music, from sans jamais ni demain, the ball hitting blue and green bricks triggered four instances of iZotope's Iris, and the paddle served as a crossfader.
BreakOSC! is no longer available on the App Store. Its source code can be shared on request.
2012
sans jamais ni demain
music
album · released 28 May 2012
A collection of experimental electronic music and recent explorations, bringing together most of Sylvain's musical ideas up to that point.
It includes his two pieces for CT-One Minute, the soundtracks of the films Les tutus de chemin and train, studies from an electroacoustic composition course at Simon Fraser University, Game music, played by bouncing a ball in BreakOSC!, and July 8 2011, a basement performance of what would become the meta-trombone.
2012
CT-One Minute
music
compilation · Chain-Tape Collective · released May 2012
Sylvain Poitras contributed two tracks to this Chain-Tape Collective project: the longing for repetition and twice through the looking glass. Every sound in both comes from the same ten-second bass clarinet phrase, a free sample from the Philharmonia Orchestra.
The longing for repetition was played in one take in the Samplewiz sampler on an iPod, used as a live looper. Twice through the looking glass reshaped the sample with iZotope's Iris and features Sylvain's three-month-old daughter hitting surfaces: their first father–daughter collaboration.
Twice through the looking glass was then selected for the 2012 60x60 Canadian Mix and heard in concerts in St. John's, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
2012
Constrained Music
music
LP project
An LP project from 2012 that set out to develop ideas first explored in contributions to the weekly Disquiet Junto call for works. Sylvain joined the Junto in November 2012, and found that working within each week's constraints prompted music he would not otherwise have made.
2010
Guitar Controller
hardware
MIDI controller · Plogue Bidule
A general-purpose computer music controller built from a used Guitar Hero controller bought for $10, as a stepping stone towards the meta-trombone. A first version wired the buttons to the circuit of a gutted USB keyboard; latency led to a Highly Liquid MIDI CPU and low-profile arcade buttons.
The controller only sends MIDI notes; the music happens in a Plogue Bidule patch. In the version in the video, the twelve neck buttons pick audio files from three pools (subjects, verbs and complements, spoken by Sylvain's wife), each at its own playback speed, and three buttons on the body play them, one of them in reverse: fretting and picking, with words for strings. The result feeds the Mobius looper, controlled by foot.
2010
Les fumettos du cyclope
comics
anthology · Éditions Trip
Sylvain contributed two stories (10 pages) to this 300-page collection of cutting-edge graphic narratives published by Éditions Trip. Both are philosophical, and both grew out of his earlier short films.
À lire en cas de crise existentielle is a first-aid kit for an existential moment, after his most-watched animation. Des chemins et des ruines draws a parallel between Socrates accepting his death sentence to stay faithful to his principles and a young divorcée who cannot reconcile her vow to stay married "until death" with her present situation. The pages were inked digitally in a ligne claire style and coloured with a collage of scanned fabrics.
2010
cartoonified musician
music
album · released 5 March 2010
A selection of songs recorded between June 2007 and March 2008. The aesthetic imperatives that unite them: simplicity of theme and execution, bare-bones instrumentation, and a significant debt to Tom Waits and the Cookie Monster.
Sylvain Poitras plays trombone, plastic containers, frying pans, marimbas, trumpet, melodica, jug and kazoo, and attempts to sing like the Cookie Monster.
2006–11
Animation
film
short animations · 2006–2011
Press play in case of existential crisis (2006), a first-aid kit for existential moments, is an animated nude study in blue conté, with a computer voice on stoicism and existentialism and some symbolic logic. Probably made in an afternoon, it became Sylvain's most-watched video and later a comic in Les fumettos du cyclope.
train (2011) uses film-scratching techniques learned from Collin Zipp, with music made in SoundGrain. Une tulipe aux abois (2011), after a story by István Örkény, was made with Carole Barbeau during a Kino Outaouais Kabaret.
2006–11
Short Films
film
short films · 2006–2011
Short films, most of them in French and several made in a weekend for Kino Outaouais Kabarets. Le trésor de la guilde (2008) was nominated for the Télé-Québec prize. In Les tutus de chemin (2011), made with Carole Barbeau, someone puts tutus everywhere to counter contemporary art. Se rouler dans le sable is self-referential, La formation linguistique follows a teacher with a different approach, and Star Wars: The Escape, made in two days, takes place between Episodes III and IV.
n.d.
Captain Dada
comics
comic book project · a comic book about reality
Captain Dada was a comic book project about the very nature of reality and the relation between language and the world. Its premise is a world in which Descartes' mind–body dualism is resolved not by reducing the mind to the physical, but by explaining physical reality in terms of the mental. This ontological framework explains all magic: words alone can alter reality.
The story begins in space, with an astronaut adrift and tumbling towards the Earth. With nothing physical to save him, the astronaut reshapes his reality by thinking thoughts best left unthought.
On Earth, Captain Dada harnesses the powers of language in untold ways. Since he says things people would never say, he can do things they could never do. His task: to mend the ontological rift opened by the unwary astronaut's dangerous thoughts.
The astronaut's prologue was published as a two-page story in Trip 8.
n.d.
Philosophy Comics
comics
anthology project
A project for a short anthology of philosophical graphic narratives drawing on my philosophy training. The idea grew out of my two contributions to Les fumettos du cyclope.
About
A philosopher by training, Sylvain Poitras explores circularity and self-reference in video, comics and electroacoustic music. Whether he works with images, words or sounds, he seeks above all to blur the boundary between an object and its designation. A software designer and trombonist, he naturally went on to invent the meta-trombone, a sophisticated processing system that has curiously led him back toward the origins of free jazz.
From his roots as a big-band trombonist, Sylvain has become an experimental musician by combining his love of the trombone with a natural aptitude for programming.
Sylvain has loved comic books since childhood. After taking a few courses at the Université du Québec en Outaouais, his amateur efforts found publication. Later projects pushed his skills in new directions, including puppet-making, miniature set building and photography.