Beyond the DAW: Designing a Procedural Sequencer Powered by Music-Theory
Most music composition tools originate from either traditional sequencing DAWs or purely procedural programming environments. While many have evolved into hybrid DAWs that incorporate elements of both approaches, they remain largely defined by their origins - addressing innovation through UI enhancements rather than rethinking core architecture.
This talk explores a DAW reimagined, merging clip-based sequencing with procedural programming principles and a graph-based framework. Our approach treats music theory not as an absolute truth, but as a set of human-created toolboxes - for jazz harmony, classical composition, microtonal musics, and more - that musicians can apply creatively and procedurally while maintaining full non-destructive control within a linear timeline.
This system lets musicians navigate by ear through theoretical possibilities — trying different tools, keeping what fits, and discarding the rest. Procedural generation becomes an optional co-pilot rather than a gatekeeper, helping musicians leverage complex theoretical concepts without formal training or simply step around them altogether.
The main focus will be on combining the immediacy of traditional sequencing with the flexibility of procedural systems, where theory can shape compositions - rather than merely sketching them out. We'll examine how to architect the sequencer as a directed graph of conventional DAW elements such as tracks and clips, and combine this with composable, non-destructive operations. It will be explained how such graph-based architectures enable complex node interdependencies that formally represent and manipulate various aspects of music theory.
Romy Dugue
Lead developer
Koala DSP
I'm a JUCE developer who builds audio plugins for clients worldwide—everything from wild effects to expressive synths. When I'm not coding or out at concerts, you'll find me making music, from stoner rock to techno. I believe the best music technology doesn't get in your way or steal the fun parts of making music; instead, it becomes part of your creative flow. That's what drives my work: building tools that understand the joy of creation and amplify it rather than complicate it.
Cecill Etheredge
CTO
KoalaDSP B.V.
In daily life, Cecill serves as the Technical Director of KoalaDSP, a European startup focused on whitelabel DSP, middleware and audio plugin development for major industry players. In the remaining hours, Cecill channels his engineering skills and artistic flair into tackling challenging and complex problems, driven by a classic hacker ethos and curiosity. With a lifelong passion for technology and music, and over 20 years of experience in areas involving hardware, games, graphics, audio & algorithms, Cecill is still on a never-ending journey to learn, to create impactful innovations, and to share the lessons learned with others.
Cecill's experience with GPGPU began in 2008 during the early days of NVIDIA CUDA and Cg with the development of custom graphics rasterization and voxel raytracing algorithms at the University of Twente. This led to a more prominent role in researching & creating mass-spring physics algorithms in CUDA for medical systems with sub-millisecond real-time haptics. The drive to explore new uses for GPGPU has never left ever since. Today, with GPGPU technology more relevant than ever, the integration of GPGPU and audio has become particularly significant and personally relevant.