This has really got me thinking this evening.

What if you had some kind of tone generator that worked by starting with, say, a 1 bar envelope. Then applied the same envelope to itself at 4 times speed, i.e. a 1 beat loop, and then so on forever ad-infinitum, until you get a tone?

You could have all kinds of variations too, e.g. two different alternating envelopes, using different factors of reduction. You'd probably get some amazing textures out of it.

Is there any tool that does this already? If not, I might have a stab at this when I've got some free time, and I've got my head round the VST API properly.

(I am stroking my chin as I type this)