Superbooth 16: In this video, via Sonic State, Audio Damage’s Chris Randall explains Karplus-Strong synthesis and their new Proton module.
Karplus-Strong synthesis is an approach to physical modeling that can be used to emulate string sounds. It’s based on feeding an impulse (often a burst of noise) into a delay line, and then feeding the output of the delay line back into itself.
This simulates plucking a string – the string will vibrate at specific frequencies and changing the length of the string changes that pitch. In Karplus-Strong synthesis, changing the length of the delay line has the same effect. And adding a filter on the delay lets you simulate dampening of the sound.
If you’ve experimented with Karplus-Strong synthesis, let us know what you’ve tried in the comments!
Chris Randall is my man crush.
Verbos.
Same.
That was quite useful. It is cool that after that explanation, KS doesn’t seem that complicated at all. It was also interesting to note that what makes KS synthesis tricky is to try to link the delay time to keyboard pitches. But clocking a delay with an oscillator input seems to sort that.
Try that with FM!!
That was quite useful. It is cool that after that explanation, KS doesn’t seem that complicated at all. It was also interesting to note that what makes KS synthesis tricky is to try to link the delay time to keyboard pitches. But clocking a delay with an oscillator input seems to sort that.