ELEMENTS /modal synthesizer

Github - BOM

Features

Excitation signal generator

• Three generators with mixer: bowing noise, blowing noise, percussive impulses.
• Envelope contour for bowing and blowing.
• Bowing noise generator: particle-like scratching noise with 2-pole low-pass filter.
• Blowing noise generator: granular pitched noise with wavetable-like scanning between various tone colors.
• Percussive impulse generator: interpolates through a collection of impulsive excitations – including sampled sticks, brushes and hammers, and models of damped mallets, plectrums, or bouncy particles. 2-pole low-pass filter and pitch control.

Modal resonator

• Internally uses 64 zero-delay feedback state variable filters.
• Coarse, fine and FM frequency controls.
• Geometry: Interpolates through a collection of structures, including plates, strings, tubes, bowls.
• Brightness. Specifies the character of the material the resonating structure is made of – from wood to glass, from nylon to steel.
• Damping. Adds damping to the sound – simulates a wet material or the muting of the vibrations.
• Position. Specifies at which point the structure is excited.
• Space. Creates an increasingly rich stereo output by capturing the sound at two different points of the structure, and then adds more space through algorithmic reverberation.

Designed for Eurorack

• All exciter and resonator parameters have a dedicated CV input with attenuverter.
• Strength input, for amplitude control of the exciter section.
• Frequency control through a V/O input controlling the main resonator frequency, and an FM input.
• Two audio inputs: one pre-envelope and diffuser, the other patched straight to the resonator.
• Stereo audio output, with adjustable width/reverberation. It is also possible to output the raw exciter signal on one channel, and the raw resonator signal on the other.

Specifications

• Input impedances: 100k.
• CV range: +/- 8V. CVs outside of this range are simply clipped.
• Audio input level: calibrated for modular (10 Vpp).
• Audio acquisition and restitution: 16-bit, 32kHz.
• Internal computations on 32-bit floating point numbers.

Code (AVR projects): GPL3.0.

Code (STM32F projects): MIT license.

Hardware: cc-by-sa-3.0

By: Emilie Gillet (emilie.o.gillet@gmail.com)