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User manual · Objects & Properties

Resonator

A Resonator is a complete vibrating object in a single piece: a string, a bar, a plate, a drumhead, the air inside a wind instrument, a bell, or an object that rings at overtones you choose. A model built from Bodies and Springs gets its sound from many masses pulling on each other; a Resonator instead rings at its own series of overtones (its modes), tuned to the note you play. There are seven types: String, Bar, Plate, Membrane, Tube, Bell, and Custom.

A Resonator can be added by dragging it from the Resonator tab of the Object Palette into the 3D view, or by pressing Shift+N with the mouse over the 3D view, which adds a String. The Type selector in the right panel changes a Resonator into another type, and the randomize button beside it picks a random type for each selected Resonator.

A Resonator stays where you place it, like an Anchor: forces make it vibrate, but they never push it around. Its Position and Orientation can still be modulated to move or turn it.

Connecting a Resonator#

A Resonator takes the same connections as a Body:

  • Exciters, through an Exciter Link: strike it with a Mallet, bow it with a Bow, pluck it with a Plectrum, or blow it with a Mouthpiece.
  • Mics, through a Mic Link, to hear it.
  • Springs, to Bodies, Anchors, or other Resonators. A Spring passes vibration both ways, so a String connected to a Plate by a Spring drives the Plate like a soundboard, and two Strings connected together ring in sympathy.
  • Modulators, through a Modulator Link, on any of its modulatable properties.

A Modulosphere can also excite the parts of a Resonator that lie inside it.

Contact Points#

Every link meets a Resonator at a contact point on its surface, drawn as a small spindle-shaped marker. Where the contact sits matters just as it does on a real instrument: a string plucked near its end sounds brighter and thinner than one plucked in the middle, and a Mic placed where a mode doesn't move (a node) won't hear that mode at all.

A contact is placed where you drop the link onto the Resonator, or where you start the connection from on it. To move it, select the link and drag its marker across the object. If several links on the same Resonator are selected, their contacts all move together. Moving the Mic or Exciter itself does not move its contact; only the link's contact point does.

Like nearly everything else in Anukari, a contact's position can be modulated: connect a modulator such as an LFO to the link and set its Target to Contact U or Contact V. This can lead to some really interesting effects. A Mic contact that slowly sweeps along a String passes over the nodes of one mode after another, for a moving, phaser-like shimmer, and an Exciter contact that moves between notes changes the tone of every strike.

Resonator Contact Properties#

When a selected link is connected to a Resonator, the right panel shows a Resonator Contact section. For a link with a Resonator on both ends, each control appears twice, labeled A and B for the link's two ends.

  • Contact: U: Where the link meets the Resonator along the length (or width) of the object: 0 is one edge and 1 the other, 0.5 the middle. With Point extent this also selects which modes it drives or hears. Drop a Modulator on this slider to move the contact while the note plays.
  • Contact: V: Where the link meets the Resonator across the height of the object, in the same way. Only Plates, Membranes, and Bells have this second direction; Strings, Bars, Tubes, and Custom Resonators are placed along their length alone.
  • Extent: How much of the object the contact touches. Point is one spot, at U and V, with the object's Contact Width. Surface is the whole surface at once: a force pushes the object evenly, and a Mic hears the overall volume of air the object moves. Diffuse reaches every mode at its average strength, so it is never silent, like a room mic for a bell. Surface and Diffuse ignore Contact Width, while U and V still place the link. Some objects move no overall air, so a Surface contact on a Bell, a Free or Marimba Bar, or a String's or Custom's Pressure port is silent; the connection checker points this out.
  • Port (String, Tube, and Custom): What the contact drives and hears. Velocity is the surface's motion (a Tube's air flow); Pressure is a Tube's air pressure, or a String's or Custom's slope, which peaks where the velocity has a node. A Reed or Lip Mouthpiece belongs on a Pressure port at a closed Tube end, a Jet on a Velocity port at an open one. A Diffuse contact hears every mode the same on either port, so with Diffuse extent the Port makes no difference.

Picking the Pitch by Note#

A Resonator's Frequency is its pitch at the reference note, C3 (middle C). When you play other notes, the Resonator retunes with them, just as the rest of the physics does.

To set the Frequency as a note instead of in Hz, click the note icon beside the Frequency value. The slider then shows the note, with two buttons: Choose... opens a piano keyboard to click the note on, and Sense... sets it from the next MIDI note you play. Click the icon again to go back to Hz.

Resonator Properties#

All Resonator types share the following properties. Each type's own properties are documented on its page; the right panel shows them under the Shape heading, after Stretch.

  • Type: The kind of object: a String, a Bar, a Plate, a Membrane, a Tube, a Bell, or a custom list of overtones. Each has its own overtone series.
  • Frequency: The pitch at the reference note (C3) of ratio 1 of the overtones: the fundamental of most kinds, a Bell's prime (its hum sounds an octave lower), and a Custom's ratio 1 whether or not its list holds 1. In the polyphonic modes the played note retunes it; in Singleton mode a MIDI Note Follower connected to it keytracks it.
  • Max Modes: The most modes (partials) the object may have. More modes give a denser, brighter spectrum and cost more CPU. A Custom Resonator can have up to 64 modes and the other types up to 256. Modes too high to hear are left out, so a high note may play fewer modes than this.
  • Stretch: Stretches (positive) or compresses (negative) the overtones about the fundamental. 0 leaves the object's natural overtone series.

Material#

  • Mass: The object's mass at the reference pitch, C3. A heavier object responds less to a given force and is usually quieter. A light object with many modes can become unstable when coupled by a stiff plain Spring; for a very stiff coupling, use a Stable Spring instead.
  • Contact Width: How wide each Point contact on the object is. A wider contact drives and hears the high modes less and presents more mass to a Spring or a strike, like a broad mallet head or a wide pickup; 0 is a point. Surface and Diffuse extents ignore this width, while the built-in Bridge and Snares use it.
  • Decay: How long the fundamental takes to fade by 60 dB after it is struck. Material sets how the other modes' decay differs from it.
  • Decay: Note: How much the decay is scaled by the played note: at 1 the decay is the same number of seconds on every note, at 0 a note an octave up decays twice as fast.
  • Material: How the decay changes with frequency: negative makes the high modes die first, positive makes them ring on, 0 decays every mode alike.
  • Tone: Tilts the loudness of the modes with frequency: positive values make the high modes louder, negative values quieter, 0 leaves them as the physics has them.
  • Tension (String, Plate, Membrane, and Custom): How much a strike stiffens the object: the pitch rises with the strike's energy and settles back, for the pitch glide of a hard-hit drum or a slapped string. With Curvature up, the partials it feeds are detuned while the pitch is up, which limits and times their bloom.
  • Curvature (Bell, Plate, and Custom): How much a strike's energy spreads from the main tones into others after the hit, for the blooming shimmer of a hand pan or bell. Higher values bloom more.
  • Use Dilated Time: Whether the played note retunes the object along with the rest of the physics. Off, it keeps its own pitch whatever the note, for a drone or a soundboard that every note plays into.

Mode EQ#

The Mode EQ shapes the object's modes in eight bands an octave apart, from 1x to 128x the fundamental, with neighboring bands blending into each other. The panel shows it as two graphs, gain above and decay below, with the band labels between them.

  • Mode EQ Gain: Boosts or cuts the modes around each band: draw across the bands (a stroke near the 0 dB line snaps to it), or drop a Modulator on one.
  • Mode EQ Decay: Multiplies the decay time of the modes around each band, below 1 to die sooner and above 1 to ring longer: draw across the bands (a stroke near the 1x line snaps to it), or drop a Modulator on one.

Orientation and Position#

  • Orientation: The rotational latitude, longitude, and spin of the object in 3D space. Modulating the latitude or longitude turns the object, and its contact points turn with it.
  • Position: These X, Y, and Z coordinates determine where in 3D space the object is placed. Modulating these parameters will make the object move.