Electronic music by classical composers

My interest in instrument-like parameter control, for example you mentioned the violin, is not for the ability to emulate the sound of mechanical instruments or to be able to perform the electronic instruments live. Rather, it is to be facilitate the most ideal interface between your brain and the instrument.

It seems you both have experience with synths/samplers, SSC it sounds like you have experience composing electronic music like trance and such and if so no doubt you're better at automation than I am. I don't know what your experiences with synths have been, but in my case I have had the chance to compare manipulating nobs by hand vs. manipulating nobs on a virtual interface vs plotting automation on a graph, and my experience has been that I am more able to experiment and also more able to express my ideas using a physical interface over a computer mouse (physical I know but u get it) and to an even greater extent over a graph. Now I know people can come up with some great stuff using graphs but I think that ultimately the best method, at least for formal music, Is to conceive of the parameter modulations, including dynamics, during the same instance. But that doesn't mean you can't come back after and tweak things or add other effects.

The brain never evolved to be a calculator but it is an amazingly powerful processor of auditory information. In order to harness that power I think it is best to allow your brain the most direct control over sound, and in real time so that your brain can receive immediate feedback as to what it's actions have amounted to.

As for electronic instruments other than synths or electronic applications other then actual sound production, those things are all fine and I make no effort to exclude them from anyones repertoire, but at the moment they are beyond my consideration. I suppose when I started out by asking about electronic instruments I had one things in mind while the terms evoked separate ideas for everyone else. What I am trying to get at is the manipulation and engineering of tones that are to constitute the melodies and harmonies of music. Because synths deal with structuring of tones at the basic level I find it most useful to consider them. Sure you can sample anything you want and then play it back at differing pitches and that's fine but it doesn't really lend itself to a theoretical approach to sound but more to an experimental one.

As for being more specific as to the kind of music I have in my mind, I don't know the extent to which I could define it as my music theory is not the greatest but I can certainly give examples:

-Beethoven's symphonies

-Gustav Holst's, The Planets

-Prokofiev's music for large ensembles

-Shubert's Unfinished Symphony

-Yngwie Malmsteen's orchestral work

Just examples though. I guess I generally just mean any music that employs an orchestra in a reasonably traditional way, or even otherwise. As long as there is a need to have many different voices playing at once then a theoretical approach to timbre could be employed, or not. And of course if you want to mix other elements with this approach go ahead. I'm not saying yo can't have some thing or the other in your music.

interestingly, it has even been a common trend in our "western music culture" to actually favour instruments that have been less "complex" acoustically: We developed instruments that had less and less inharmonic partials, less and less noise components, and a more and more "softer" sound, which usually refers to a lack of strong overtones.

That is interesting. So then it seems that to have many different instruments playing in concert it is ideal that they not be overly "complex." That is exactly the sort of thing I'm trying to get at. I suspect, then, that there is some sort of happy median as to what is too complex and not complex enough. There is also the question as to which aspects of timbre cause interference and which can be pronounced without being problematic (maybe none can.) Btw, do you know a good online reference on timber/acoustics in orchestras?