Most synths that advertise a neural network are using it as a preset generator — a model picks parameters for an oscillator that was already there. Sentient, released September 12, 2026 by Valery Mironov at $5.99, puts the network where the wavetable would be.
Mironov’s previous instrument, Cellular, ran on cellular automata. This one runs on something that learns.
The network is the oscillator
Sentient’s wavetables don’t ship with the app. A machine-learning model listens to everyday sounds and builds a personalized wavetable from them, and the resulting waveforms live in a visible grid — two hemispheres of cells, each cell a neuron holding a stored waveform. Tap one and it selects that neuron’s wave, drawn as an orange trace.
The controls are unusual in that they expose the training process rather than hiding it behind a “learn” button:
- Eyes open or closed toggles whether the network is currently learning.
- Dragging vertically sets the learning rate.
- Dragging horizontally sets how strongly each neuron influences its neighbors — the parameter that decides whether you get a grid of distinct waveforms or a smeared continuum of related ones.
The network visibly swells while it’s analyzing. That’s a small design decision doing a lot of work: it makes an invisible process legible in real time, which is the difference between an instrument you learn to play and one you poke until something happens.
The rest of it
Six synthesis settings cover oscillator waveform selection with frequency and volume, plus modulation depth and rate, routable to pan, drive, filter, and resonance. The keyboard is eight keys rendered as Lissajous figures rather than piano keys.
There’s also a memory interface built around a planet: crescent shadows indicate time of day, the moon’s position indicates the date, and a satellite’s position stands for orbital period. Whether that’s an elegant way to navigate saved states by when you made them or an obstacle between you and your patches will depend entirely on your tolerance for metaphor. It is, at minimum, consistent — this is an instrument with a worldview.
Who it’s for
At $5.99, running standalone or as AUv3 on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Silicon Macs, it’s priced as an impulse. The catch is the same as the appeal: wavetables derived from whatever the microphone heard are not a sound you can precisely specify in advance, so this is an instrument for sound designers and improvisers rather than anyone who needs to hit a defined target. Feed it a specific room, a specific machine, a specific street, and the patch carries that place in it — which is a genuinely different compositional proposition from picking a wavetable off a list.