Circle from Future Audio Workshop is an upcoming virtual instrument that’s gotten our attention in a big way. In terms of sound, its capabilities are familiar, if very complete. What’s different is its approach to interface design and usability, refocusing on “Flow” and ease-of-use while looking forward to new interface capabilities in touchscreens, multi-touch, and OpenSoundControl. What makes that doubly interesting is that Circle appears to embody a trend in a new generation of music software — not that it stands alone, necessarily, as much as it seems to present a glimpse via an independent developer of where things may be going.

Eoin Rossney, our new writer and contributor to the Kore minisite, got a chance to talk to FAW co-founder Gavin Burke, a fellow Irishman. We’ll have more on the instrument itself soon, but it’s an excellent, coffee-fueled discussion of instrument design in general. -PK

I had the opportunity to visit Future Audio Workshop’s office in Connemara, County Galway, Ireland to have a chat with Gavin Burke about their upcoming synth, Circle. While instrument design is a collaborative process for FAW, Gavin’s area of expertise is in Signal Processing algorithms. I wanted to talk to FAW to find out some more about how the synth came to be, the company’s ethos, and the inclusion of OSC. What I got was a fascinating insight into the world of softsynth design and a sense that a shift may be about to occur in this area. If you haven’t heard of Circle check out CDM’s preview.

Over copious amounts of coffee, Gavin told me a little bit about how FAW came to be. Having spent a long time designing synths that strive to emulate old hardware (with many of hardware’s inherent limitations creeping across into the software effort), Gavin and the guys from FAW wanted to design a synth that does away with old conventions and embraces the type of advances in usability that we have come to take for granted in interface design over the last few years.