SYMFAUNIA®

NEÔ is, first and foremost, a close-knit group of friends from different creative and technical worlds, united by the same obsession: sound.

Our backgrounds cross music, cinema and technology. Among us are ghost producers who have worked behind releases for major artists, composers for film and cinematic media, software developers, sound designers, and former industry professionals from established music-technology companies including Best Service and Native Instruments.

Some of us come from the studio. Others from code, sampling, sound design or the world of professional audio software. What brought us together was the desire to build instruments that feel genuinely new — not different for the sake of being different, but different because the source, the process and the emotion behind them are different.

That combination of disciplines became the foundation of NEÔ: musicians thinking like developers, developers listening like musicians, and everyone challenging the limits of what a playable sound can be.

THE STORY BEHIND SYMFAUNIA®

The idea for Symfaunia® emerged from a conversation inside NEÔ. One of us asked a deceptively simple question: what if the sounds of the animal world were not treated as background recordings or sound effects, but as the raw material for a new generation of musical instruments?

That question became a project. The ambition was clear from the beginning: capture living sound with respect, reveal its musical potential through careful analysis and sound design, and transform it into instruments that producers and composers would actually want to play.

Symfaunia® began with a simple idea: to turn the extraordinary sounds of the animal world into real musical instruments.

From that point on, every decision — from field recording to spectral analysis, mapping, programming and interface design — was guided by the same principle: preserve the identity of the original source while opening a completely new musical vocabulary.

The question at the heart of Symfaunia® became:

What if the voice of an animal could become a bass, a lead, a pad, a texture, a percussion sound — or something completely new?

Our raw material does not come from conventional instruments or synthesizers.

It begins with sounds produced by animals: calls, cries, breaths, wingbeats, impacts, friction, resonances, movements and countless small sonic details captured in the field.

Every recording has its own spectral fingerprint.

Some sources contain powerful low-frequency energy that can naturally become the foundation of a bass or sub layer.

Others reveal strong harmonics, formants or tonal elements that can be transformed into leads, keys or melodic instruments.

Short and detailed transients may become percussion, plucks or rhythmic material, while longer and more complex recordings can evolve into pads, drones, textures, atmospheres and cinematic effects.

That is where our work really begins.

Each recording is carefully listened to, selected, cleaned and edited.

We analyse its transient behaviour, harmonic structure, frequency content, dynamics, pitch stability, resonances and natural movement before deciding what kind of instrument it could become.

Sometimes we preserve a sound almost exactly as it was captured.

Sometimes we tune it, stretch it, resample it, layer it or reshape its envelope.

And sometimes several animal sources are combined into a hybrid sound, where the original recordings remain present but become something that could never exist in nature on its own.

The objective is not simply to place an unusual sample across a keyboard.

The objective is to design a playable instrument.

Mapping, velocity response, envelopes, articulations, stereo balance, dynamics, layering and spectral balance are refined until the sound reacts naturally under the fingers and finds its place inside a real composition.

For us, the technical process is only valuable when it serves musical expression.

A sound can be technically perfect and still leave you uninspired.

What matters is that first note.

When our first complete sound bank finally became a coherent instrument, the whole team experienced a feeling we had not expected.

That feeling became an important part of the Symfaunia® philosophy.

Behind every preset is a real recording, a real living source and many hours of listening, editing, experimenting and refining.

We also believe that capturing wildlife comes with responsibility.

Our approach to field recording is designed around observation and respect. Animals are never intentionally harmed, stressed or disturbed for the purpose of obtaining a sound.

We favour non-invasive recording techniques, appropriate distance, patience and awareness of the surrounding habitat.

The welfare of the animal always comes before the recording.

Because the source of Symfaunia® is alive.

And respecting that source is part of the instrument itself.

Since 2024, we have continued developing this concept with the same curiosity and attention to detail — combining field recording, sampling, spectral analysis, sound design and instrument development.

Symfaunia® is not simply a collection of animal recordings.

It is a process of transformation.

From wildlife to waveform.
From waveform to sound design.
From sound design to instrument.
And from instrument to music.

Living animal sound, carefully designed into musical expression.