I build software instruments. I think for a lot of instrument builder / composers the instrument building process and the composition process are tightly linked in a feedback loop. “Making music” and “building instruments” often have a very blurry line between them if any at all.
What impact it has had on the way I make music is a little harder to pin down. I suppose there must be folks working with electronic/electro-acoustic music in some form who approach composition as if writing for a traditional chamber ensemble of orchestra-family instruments whose designs are obsessively fixed to an ideal and infrequently tinkered with. I think a major appeal for many, certainly for me, is the sculptural aspect of working directly with sound – which goes hand-in-hand with instrument building.
Not just for electronic sound. I think most instrument builder / composers are primarily interested in the affordances provided by building your own instrument: namely, that the spectromorphological behavior of an instrument can be composed just as any other element in a given piece might be.
