Just stumbled on this via Synthtopia. Great conceptual overview, and many of hte concepts can be applied to any synth (esp. virtual modulars like Reaktor).
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvrxQbh6vAg

Thanks. I learned a new term from that: "generative music". 
 
I've always referred to the process in less-flattering terms. :)
 
He makes a reasonable case for respecting the technique as a legitimate form of musical expression.

bitflipper
Thanks. I learned a new term from that: "generative music". 
 
I've always referred to the process in less-flattering terms. :)
 
He makes a reasonable case for respecting the technique as a legitimate form of musical expression.

The way I look at it (as someone who's spent ridiculous amounts of time over the last year and half watching demo videos trying to discern how a given module might sound in a traditional musical context) is that those of us who can play something at least vaguely musical on an acoustic instrument tend to be OK with evolving, sequenced or generative timbre but look unfavorably on its use with pitch. Did anyone care if Keith Emerson used a sample and hold to control a VCF?
 
So if you look at that sort of music as being about timbre rather than melody, it makes more sense. But that of course doesn't mean one has to want to go out of their way to listen to it.

Cool video,
 
I've just bought Reaktor and I've been having a load of fun trying to do something similar

Generative modular music is a very valid concept and what it really defines is the process of setting up a modular system in such a way as to generate ideas that continually evolve and change over time.  Sometimes these things can just play themselves and evolve over hours without any interference but you can also steer what happens too by making adjustments to various things along the way. (I used to bring in non musical people such as photographers and ask them to randomly twist things. All I told them to do was only make fine or very subtle changes)
 
Back in the 80's and 90's I had quite a large Korg modular setup myself and got into this very thing.  It is quite interesting and fascinating.
 
Except where some people get this wrong is they can easily think that it is confined to timbral changes only but this is very wrong.  A lot of people who set these things up including the guy in the video may have a lack of understanding as to how to setup a pure melodic concept using this approach.  I have done this where key centres and notes all play in relation to each other (at random as well) and it is possible to setup parameters in such a way as to not so much of a timbral change taking effect but a melodic one.  I have done both and while the timbral change concept is very cool  (and some of the sounds in that video were also cool) you can also do it purely melodically as well.
 
But it takes some serious knowledge of music and theory and harmony concepts to be able to do it.  The problem with many people who fiddle with modular systems is that they lack this knowledge and hence most often the results are timbral rather than melodic.
 
I have setup quite extraordinary setups which play only melodically and that include bass parts and chords as well.  And yes a great percentage of the results can still be rubbish too but there are always moments of glory in there too.  The trick is to identify them and then develop those short lived gems further yourself.
 
Jan Hammer used to do this when he was scoring Miami Vice soundtracks.  I think at one stage he was doing like 5 episodes a week and that is tough.  He used to set up things like this and let them run overnight and then quickly scan the results the next day and pick out the good bits and then develop and refine.
 
There is more than one approach to it that is all I am saying.  The musical way though is much harder.
 
What is cool though is this thread is interesting (many Sonar users may not agree) and I thank the OP for mentioning it. The real challenge now though could be figuring out a way to do it all now in software.  I might need that Arturia Moog Modular after all!
 

Jeff Evans
Except where some people get this wrong is they can easily think that it is confined to timbral changes only but this is very wrong.  A lot of people who set these things up including the guy in the video may have a lack of understanding as to how to setup a pure melodic concept using this approach.

One of the things you find though is that many people out there simply don't care about melody in the sense that we do. To the extent that there are many modular oscillators and other sound sources made today that can't track pitch reliably over more than a very limited range - not because they aren't calibrated properly, but because they simply weren't designed to do so.

That is a good point Drew.  I found though that if you used oscillators for the purposes of playing pitches rather than filters, then you usually can get them to track pretty well.  Or I did anyway.  It's when you get filters oscillating and then you want to use control voltages to modulate them for the purposes of playing pitches then things can get tricky.  That is where the harder part can come into it.  Even so with care I could get a filter to track pitch OK over a few octaves.  But it was always very fiddly.  An oscillating filter is basically a sine wave anyway so you might as well use an oscillator set for a sine wave.  It is a lot easier.
 
In a lot of the modular gear I used it was always much bigger. eg full sized knobs (larger pots) and jack sockets too.  Now they are trying to squeeze it all into much smaller spaces.

Jeff Evans
That is a good point Drew.  I found though that if you used oscillators for the purposes of playing pitches rather than filters, then you usually can get them to track pretty well.  Or I did anyway.  

It's really a design criteria thing. Pretty much all analog oscillators today (except LFO's) are temperature compensated so they don't drift much once warmed up. But whereas some makers will go out of their way to make stuff that can track pretty accurately over 7 octaves or more, other makers come from the "west coast" synth school where that simply isn't a high priority design goal. Because if someone is making drones or music that isn't in tune with itself or other instruments or whatever, pitch tracking doesn't matter to them. 
 
So for those of us would like to be able to play something over the full range of a 5 octave keyboard controller, we learn we need to carefully select appropriate tools for the job. And not just assume that the maker intended for a module to be used that way.

thx 
 

Cool video, thanks!