2026
Matthew Peachey
Investigating Continuous Interactions for generative Tools in the Context of Musical Creativity PhD Thesis
Dalhousie University, 2026.
Abstract | BibTeX | Tags: continuous interaction, continuous-interaction-and-machine-learning, control mapping, creativity support tools, digital musical instruments, machine learning, music, sound & music computing
@phdthesis{Peachey2026b,
title = {Investigating Continuous Interactions for generative Tools in the Context of Musical Creativity},
author = {Matthew Peachey},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-10-19},
urldate = {2026-10-19},
school = {Dalhousie University},
abstract = {This thesis investigates continuous interaction as a design principle for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered music creativity support tools. Discrete text prompting, the de facto standard for current generative AI systems, can limit musicians’ sense of artistic agency and creative ownership. Continuous interaction instead can enable fine-grained, real-time control over the generative process, helping musicians retain a sense of authorship over the generated output.
This thesis presents three studies that together examine how continuous interaction, integrated into real-time interfaces, can better support musicians’ creative workflows. First, I derived low-dimensional latent representations from a Variational Autoencoder with an intentionally small latent space, integrated them into a real-time GUI, and evaluated them in a mixed-methods study with both novice and experienced synthesizer users (n = 18). Second, I interviewed experienced musicians (n = 10) about their hesitations toward generative AI; their concerns centered on a lack of compelling tools and workflows, further motivating continuous interaction as a design preference. Finally, I developed a framework for Aging Digital Musical Instruments (AgingDMIs), a novel class of instruments that adapt to a user’s play style over time. I then implemented a hardware prototype instantiating one point in the AgingDMI design space, and evaluated it longitudinally with experienced musicians (n= 4) for twelve recurring sessions over several weeks.
The findings presented in this thesis suggest that integrating continuous interaction into generative AI-powered creativity support tools increases musicians’ artistic agency and creative ownership and fits better within their existing creative workflows. I further contribute a validated
design framework for AgingDMIs, a novel class of adaptive and personalized digital musical instruments, and a hardware prototype that together demonstrate the principles of that framework in practice.},
keywords = {continuous interaction, continuous-interaction-and-machine-learning, control mapping, creativity support tools, digital musical instruments, machine learning, music, sound & music computing},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {phdthesis}
}
This thesis presents three studies that together examine how continuous interaction, integrated into real-time interfaces, can better support musicians’ creative workflows. First, I derived low-dimensional latent representations from a Variational Autoencoder with an intentionally small latent space, integrated them into a real-time GUI, and evaluated them in a mixed-methods study with both novice and experienced synthesizer users (n = 18). Second, I interviewed experienced musicians (n = 10) about their hesitations toward generative AI; their concerns centered on a lack of compelling tools and workflows, further motivating continuous interaction as a design preference. Finally, I developed a framework for Aging Digital Musical Instruments (AgingDMIs), a novel class of instruments that adapt to a user’s play style over time. I then implemented a hardware prototype instantiating one point in the AgingDMI design space, and evaluated it longitudinally with experienced musicians (n= 4) for twelve recurring sessions over several weeks.
The findings presented in this thesis suggest that integrating continuous interaction into generative AI-powered creativity support tools increases musicians’ artistic agency and creative ownership and fits better within their existing creative workflows. I further contribute a validated
design framework for AgingDMIs, a novel class of adaptive and personalized digital musical instruments, and a hardware prototype that together demonstrate the principles of that framework in practice.
Matthew Peachey; Joseph Malloch
Exploring Musical Creativity in the Era of Generative Artificial Intelligence: A Qualitative Inquiry Proceedings Article Forthcoming
In: Proceedings of the Conference on AI Music Creativity (AIMC), Berlin, Germany, Forthcoming.
BibTeX | Tags: creativity support tools, machine learning, music, qualitative inquiry
@inproceedings{Peachey2026,
title = {Exploring Musical Creativity in the Era of Generative Artificial Intelligence: A Qualitative Inquiry},
author = {Matthew Peachey and Joseph Malloch},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-09-16},
urldate = {2026-09-16},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Conference on AI Music Creativity (AIMC)},
address = {Berlin, Germany},
keywords = {creativity support tools, machine learning, music, qualitative inquiry},
pubstate = {forthcoming},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
2025
Matthew Peachey; Sageev Oore; Joseph Malloch
Evaluating Low-Dimensional Latent Representations as a Creative Interface for Digital Synthesizers Proceedings Article
In: The Conference on AI Music Creativity (AIMC), 2025.
Links | BibTeX | Tags: continuous interaction, continuous-interaction-and-machine-learning, machine learning, music
@inproceedings{Peachey2025,
title = {Evaluating Low-Dimensional Latent Representations as a Creative Interface for Digital Synthesizers},
author = {Matthew Peachey and Sageev Oore and Joseph Malloch},
url = {https://zenodo.org/records/16946459},
year = {2025},
date = {2025-09-10},
urldate = {2025-09-10},
booktitle = {The Conference on AI Music Creativity (AIMC)},
keywords = {continuous interaction, continuous-interaction-and-machine-learning, machine learning, music},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
2024
Matthew Peachey; Joseph Malloch
Maplet: Integrating Distributed Data Signal Mappings for Performative Interactions Within the Eurorack Modular Synthesizer Ecosystem Proceedings Article
In: Proceedings of the International Audio Mostly Conference, Milan, Italy, 2024.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: control mapping, DMI mappings, interactive media systems, libmapper, music, open source software
@inproceedings{peachey2024maplet,
title = {Maplet: Integrating Distributed Data Signal Mappings for Performative Interactions Within the Eurorack Modular Synthesizer Ecosystem},
author = {Matthew Peachey and Joseph Malloch},
url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3678299.3678333},
year = {2024},
date = {2024-09-20},
urldate = {2024-09-20},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Audio Mostly Conference},
address = {Milan, Italy},
abstract = {Eurorack is a popular format of modular synthesizers that allow users to customize their instruments by swapping in various modules and creating patches based on their specific needs. While these instruments are very effective at creating a wide range of timbres, the way they in which they are typically performed is not always engaging to an audience or even to the performer. This paper present an initial prototype of Maplet, a module for integrating the libmapper project into the world of Eurorack. libmapper is an open-source project built to support the creation of mappings between components of Digital Musical Instruments. Decades worth of literature has shown how effective mappings are the backbone of the way both performers as well as their audience engage with the output of a digital instrument. With this in mind, we hypothesize that by introducing this mapping-first approach to performing with Eurorack synthesizers that musicians will be empowered to experiment with novel interfaces and techniques for performing with their instrument.},
keywords = {control mapping, DMI mappings, interactive media systems, libmapper, music, open source software},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
2023
Matthew Peachey; Sageev Oore; Joseph Malloch
Creating Latent Representations of Synthesizer Patches using Variational Autoencoders Proceedings Article
In: Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on the Internet of Sounds (IS2), Pisa, Italy, 2023.
Links | BibTeX | Tags: continuous-interaction-and-machine-learning, machine learning, music
@inproceedings{Peachey2023,
title = {Creating Latent Representations of Synthesizer Patches using Variational Autoencoders},
author = {Matthew Peachey and Sageev Oore and Joseph Malloch},
url = {https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10335466},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-10-26},
urldate = {2023-10-26},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on the Internet of Sounds (IS2)},
address = {Pisa, Italy},
keywords = {continuous-interaction-and-machine-learning, machine learning, music},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
Matthew Peachey; Joseph Malloch
FAUSTMapper: Facilitating Complex Mappings for Smart Musical Instruments Best Paper Proceedings Article
In: Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on the Internet of Sounds (IS2), Pisa, Italy, 2023.
Links | BibTeX | Tags: control mapping, digital musical instruments, FAUST, libmapper, music
@inproceedings{Peachey2023b,
title = {FAUSTMapper: Facilitating Complex Mappings for Smart Musical Instruments},
author = {Matthew Peachey and Joseph Malloch},
url = {https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10335404},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-10-26},
urldate = {2023-10-26},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on the Internet of Sounds (IS2)},
address = {Pisa, Italy},
keywords = {control mapping, digital musical instruments, FAUST, libmapper, music},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
Brady Boettcher; Eduardo Meneses; Christian Frisson; Marcelo M. Wanderley; Joseph Malloch
Addressing Barriers for Entry and Operation of a Distributed Signal Mapping Framework Proceedings Article
In: Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), Mexico City, Mexico, 2023.
BibTeX | Tags: collaborative systems, control mapping, music
@inproceedings{Boettcher2023,
title = {Addressing Barriers for Entry and Operation of a Distributed Signal Mapping Framework},
author = {Brady Boettcher and Eduardo Meneses and Christian Frisson and Marcelo M. Wanderley and Joseph Malloch},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-05-31},
urldate = {2023-05-31},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME)},
address = {Mexico City, Mexico},
keywords = {collaborative systems, control mapping, music},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
2022
Brady Boettcher; Joseph Malloch; Johnty Wang; Marcelo M. Wanderley
Mapper4Live: Using Control Structures to Embed Complex Mapping Tools into Music Production Environments Proceedings Article
In: Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, 2022.
BibTeX | Tags: Ableton Live, control mapping, creativity support tools, libmapper, max, music
@inproceedings{Boettcher2022,
title = {Mapper4Live: Using Control Structures to Embed Complex Mapping Tools into Music Production Environments},
author = {Brady Boettcher and Joseph Malloch and Johnty Wang and Marcelo M. Wanderley},
year = {2022},
date = {2022-06-28},
urldate = {2022-06-28},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
keywords = {Ableton Live, control mapping, creativity support tools, libmapper, max, music},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
2019
Joseph Malloch; Jérémia Garcia; Marcelo M. Wanderley; Wendy E. Mackay; Michel Beaudouin-Lafon; Stéphane Huot
A Design Workbench for Interactive Music Systems Book Chapter
In: Holland, Simon; Wilkie, Katie; Mudd, Tom; McPherson, Andrew; Wanderley, Marcelo M. (Ed.): Music and Human–Computer Interaction: Remixed, Chapter 2, Springer Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2019.
BibTeX | Tags: creativity support tools, design workbench, digital musical instruments, music
@inbook{Malloch2018_MIDWAY,
title = {A Design Workbench for Interactive Music Systems},
author = {Joseph Malloch and Jérémia Garcia and Marcelo M. Wanderley and Wendy E. Mackay and Michel Beaudouin-Lafon and Stéphane Huot},
editor = {Simon Holland and Katie Wilkie and Tom Mudd and Andrew McPherson and Marcelo M. Wanderley},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-02-22},
booktitle = {Music and Human–Computer Interaction: Remixed},
publisher = {Springer Verlag},
address = {Berlin, Heidelberg},
chapter = {2},
keywords = {creativity support tools, design workbench, digital musical instruments, music},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}