Which animal has the best eyesight ?

Analog synthesizer sound design

André invited me to do the analog synthesizer sound design for his composition for the TED-Ed episode “Which animal has the best eyesight?”

My goal was to develop a coherent sonic identity that supports the pace of the storytelling while remaining musical and unobtrusive. I wanted to shape sounds that felt light, airy, and “lifted,” almost orchestral in their behavior, more like sections and gestures than heavy synth statements, so the textures could breathe, shimmer, and carry emotion without ever weighing down the narration or the picture. Rather than leaning into aggressive bass or overtly electronic signatures, I focused on clarity, soft transients, and evolving harmonic color, aiming for timbres that suggest strings, woodwinds, or delicate ensemble swells, while still keeping the organic nuance of analog circuitry.

My work setup – Lisbon, December 2021

TGAlab – lightversion

This sound design work was developed while I was traveling in Lisbon, away from TGAlab, which pushed me into a portable workflow. Most of the core palette was built with two instruments: the Moog Voyager RME and the Moog Sirin.

The Voyager provided the main body of the sound, warm foundational tones, expressive midrange movement and subtle “bowed” or “breathy” contours achieved through careful filter sculpting and gentle modulation. The Sirin added brighter accents and lighter harmonic highlights that could glide above the arrangement.

To extend that orchestral impression and give the synths a sense of space and depth, I shaped the patches through the Eventide H9, using it to create refined spatial ambience, gentle modulation and a dimensionality that keeps the textures floating rather than pressing forward. I also used my lovely Moogerfooger MIDI MuRF to introduce animated spectral motion and rhythmic articulation in a musical way, more like the internal movement of an ensemble passage than a hard step-sequenced effect, so the synth layers could pulse, bloom and shift with a natural living quality.

The result is an analog synth design approach that favors transparency and elegance: sounds that feel luminous, orchestrally inspired while still retaining the warmth, depth that only real analog instruments can provide.