MUSIC / VISUALS / INTERACTION / CONCEPT

LABORATORY Ø

AGAINST THE ORDINARY
PROCESS AS PURPOSE

SCROLL TO EXAMINE ↓

01 /

VISUAL MATTER

UI/UX, GRAPHIC DESIGN, VIDEO & INTERACTIVE MEDIA.

AUI–UX

P.001

CAROUSEL

MUSICAL SYNTHESIZER SOFTWARE

Carousel is a five-voice round-robin polyphonic synthesizer built around a simple idea: a circle. Its five voices sit like seats on a carousel, and every note you play is assigned to a different one — in sequence, random, or all at once.

Each voice is a complete synth with its own oscillator, filter, and envelopes. Differences in tuning and timbre drift across the stereo field, creating a sound that is organic and quietly imperfect — like an old carousel left in the sun.

Carousel is designed to be simple. No LFOs, no presets, no complex synthesis — just pure play. A childhood that exists only in memory.

DOWNLOAD — GUMROAD

P.002

MORPH-6

EXPERIMENTAL SYNTHESIZER SOFTWARE

Six observed entities share the same communication protocol, yet exhibit entirely different behaviors. The same signal manifests as a different physical reality within each: some proliferate like concrete, forming vast resonant structures; others retain an untamed, primordial roar; others persist as translucent organisms of granules, metal, rubber, and glass, sustained through endless cycles of fracture and reassembly.

The windows are not control panels, but communication terminals. What you see are not parameters, but cross-sections left behind as another consciousness passes through the medium. No label can faithfully translate them. Each algorithm is another point of contact with a different lifeform.

Or perhaps they have simply chosen to borrow our world as a place to be heard.

SPECIMEN INDEX

I. MONOLITH

Two wavetable oscillators, each one's output shifting the other's read phase (mutual phase modulation), with table morphing and a variable frequency ratio between them.

II. VITRINE

A short filtered noise burst excites a bank of ten tuned two-pole resonators with variable inharmonicity, spectral tilt and per-mode decay times.

III. CILIA

Granular playback of an internal sample buffer: grains retrigger at a set rate from a movable scan position, with controls for grain length, position jitter and random per-grain playback-speed variation.

IV. SWARM

Four voices of five detuned pulse oscillators, each running through a resonant bandpass filter, with an independent logistic-map chaos generator per oscillator modulating its filter frequency and pulse width.

V. RELAY

A clocked 16-bit shift register gates three generators — a sine oscillator, a detuned sine pair and bandpass-filtered noise — with ring modulation and global frequency scaling from the pitch fader.

VI. STRATA

Brown noise plus random impulses feed six detuned parallel feedback comb filters, with lowpass damping and saturation inside each feedback loop.

DOWNLOAD — GUMROAD

P.003

KHÔRA

a language-free microtonal instrument

MUSICAL SYNTHESIZER SOFTWARE

KHÔRA is a drone-based harmonic instrument. There are no labels — every control is a living geometric object.

The ring of stars is a map of just-intonation pitches. Star size represents consonance, while color represents harmonic families. Rather than relying on theory, keyboards, or parameter lists, KHÔRA offers a new way to explore harmonic space through interaction.

CHORD GENERATORS

Click the Seed (center-left icon) to generate a chord. Right-click to switch modes.

1. GENESIS

Generates a new just-intonation chord, favoring simple, consonant intervals while always retaining the root.

2. METABOLE

Preserves some common tones from the current chord while regenerating the remaining voices, balancing continuity and change.

3. TOPOS

Moves the entire chord through just-intonation space while preserving its internal structure, revealing more distant microtonal colors.

4. SKIA (HIDDEN)

Explores dark, modal harmony over a fixed drone, with spacious minor voicings that return to the home chord every fourth generation.

5. HELIOS (HIDDEN)

The only mode based on 12-tone equal temperament (12-EDO), featuring modern color harmony with smooth bass motion and a return to the home chord every 4th generation.

FEATURED ON SYNTHTOPIA

DOWNLOAD — GUMROAD

BGRAPHIC DESIGN

AXIS — Sedative Hard Candies, packaging poster — G.01 — AXISPACKAGING

Plants & Machines — UCLA Sci Art Lab + Studio Summer Institute poster — G.02 — PLANTS & MACHINESPOSTER

Sound + Science Symposium 3.0 — triptych poster — G.03 — SOUND + SCIENCE 3.0TRIPTYCH / 2025

RECENT PROJECT — UCLA SCI|ART LAB + STUDIO SUMMER INSTITUTE · SOUND SCIENCE SYMPOSIUM 3.0 (2025) · FOWLER MUSEUM / CNSI / MATHIAS BOTANICAL GARDEN

CVIDEO & INTERACTIVE MEDIA

V.001

JAILBREAK 2024

UNITY INTERACTIVE VR PROJECT

WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY SAMUEL YANG SOUND DESIGN & SOUNDTRACKS BY SAMUEL YANG

V.002

DO ANYTHING NOW 2023

IMMERSIVE SPACE PROJECTION / INSTALLATION AT UCLA EDA

PRODUCED IN COLLABORATION WITH RYAN KIM SOUND DESIGN & SOUNDTRACKS BY SAMUEL YANG

V.003

EON 2023

UNITY INTERACTIVE ANIMATION

WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY SAMUEL YANG SOUND DESIGN & SOUNDTRACKS BY SAMUEL YANG

Combining 3D animations, hand-drawn animations, and AI-generated animations, I created a story about a quest for immortality. The story uses narrative tricks and interactive transitions to create an endless cycle of ‘me’ on the journey, from multiple perspectives and timelines. At the same time, I try to express the bizarre and profound nature of the story through original music made for the piece.

V.004

I AM A HUMAN 2023

ANIMATION / VIDEOGRAPHY PROJECT

WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY SAMUEL YANG SOUND DESIGN & SOUNDTRACKS BY SAMUEL YANG

A documentary made in the present that introduces human lives to potential post-humans and non-humans in the future.

V.005

MANIFESTO UNTITLED 2023

SEMI-GENERATIVE ANIMATION / VIDEO PROJECT

IN COLLABORATION WITH YILIN LIU, CINDY HSU, RYAN KIM SOUND DESIGN & SOUNDTRACKS BY SAMUEL YANG

02 /

SONIC MATTER

PRIMARILY SHAPED THROUGH ELECTRONIC SOUND — MOVING BETWEEN CINEMATIC SPACES AND CLUB-FOCUSED TOOLS. ROOTED IN FUTURISTIC THEMES, CARRIED BY RAW SYNTH TEXTURES, LINGERING NOSTALGIA & UNDERSTATED EMOTION.

SELECTED RECORDINGS

REC.001

RESIDUAL CYCLES

ORIGINAL MUSIC — SESSION PLAYTHROUGH

"Fragments turn to traces, and traces resolve into new forms."

REC.002

"MOLECULES" — LIVE STUDIO SESSION

EURORACK ✕ ABLETON LIVE ✕ REAL-TIME VISUALS

SESSION NOTES

"Molecules" is a live recorded studio session combining music and visuals. The arpeggios are made from scratch and tweaked live on the Eurorack modules, synced and sequenced in real-time by pre-written CV notes from Ableton Live, while the drums and synth pads are written and arranged in the DAW.

The recordings from the Eurorack and the DAW play back simultaneously, processed through the effects, and the master bus runs into Elysia outboard processors for final polishing. The audio-reactive visuals are originally programmed by visual artist Alessandra Tagliatti — remixed and arranged in the lab with Max 8 and Ableton Live, under permission, rendered in real-time.

REC.003

GAME AUDIO — DEMO REEL

UNOFFICIAL SOUND DESIGN & MUSIC FOR GAMES

RECENT UPDATES & CREDITS

OST ORIGINAL GAME SOUNDTRACK — RUNRUN BY SPARKNEXA (BY KUAISHOU CN)

REVIEW SAMUEL YANG ✕ LIUDICROUS — "POLYMERIZATION" REVIEWED BY CANADIAN DJ / PRODUCER DEADMAU5

CHART SAMUEL YANG AKA YYS — "CONSTANT VALIDATION" BEATPORT'S BEST NEW TECHNO — 2022 TOP 50

SELECTION SAMUEL YANG AKA YYS — "DEBRIS" FORMAVIVA MARCH SELECTION 2021

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THE OBSERVER

A RESEARCH PRACTICE EXPLORING THE INTERSECTIONS OF sound, visual & interactive design.

Laboratory Ø is the practice of media artist Samuel Yang, a graduate of UCLA Design Media Arts — spanning music composition & sound design, video & animation, game development, graphic / UI and product design.

Sound imagined through visuals, visuals heard as sound, so every experiment feels cohesive and intentional — a futuristic, cautionary tone runs through it all: how technology shapes human identity and culture.

Design is not only about solving problems in the present — it is about shaping humanity in a technological future.

SAMUEL.DDY@GMAIL.COM