| StoreTags: ricemutt, reaktor, bells, harmonics
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Well, here is a another Reaktor patch, researched and executed in a sort of primitively scientific fashion. It's the result of some of the things I've been researching, and inquiring about here on the forum, too. For instance, I realized that SPEAR is really perfect for harmonic analysis of sounds, and it will even print out text of the frequencies of all the partials if you want, which is exactly what I wanted!
I found out about another app some some of my friends use at school, which is a lot more intense than SPEAR, called ATSH:
link
Anyway, here is the reaktor patch: (5.1.2 UB)
link
I built this patch so I could take my harmonic analysis of Bell sounds that i've been doing recently and create a sort of abstracted synthesized version of the harmonic content of a bell sound. Really, I love bells, gongs, and all kinds of whatever you call it--things made out of metal that you bang on and make that shimmery dissonant sound.
I took a few of my favorite bell sounds, opened them up in SPEAR, and printed out the frequencies of all the main partials by eliminating the redundant frequencies and quieter frequencies. Then, I loaded them up into an Excel spreadsheet that I made, where you can input the root frequency, and it calculates the frequencies of the overtones, just-intoned chromatic scale, and also the frequencies of a 43-tone partch scale, all in whatever octave. I used that information to look at the partials and see, generally, their harmonic content.
Here's the excel spreadsheet:
link
screenshot of it:
link
There's a lot of frequencies in bells that aren't really harmonic, and I just kind of fudged and chose the closest ratio from the partch scale. I know that this might seem a little funny... since, really, real instruments aren't usually perfectly in tune, and their partials aren't either--especially bells and gongs, which have really lots of enharmonic frequencies. But I liked the idea of "idealizing" those sounds into these numeric values... and it sounded good anyhow, so that's the real test.
The Synthesis engine of this bell synth is a 16 oscillator additive synthesizer with FM. The FM is a little kooky in this patch, because I usually will just use a mod matrix, but with 16 oscillators, that seemed like too much. Instead, I chose to make 4 "modulators." Each modulator is controlled by an automation table and scans through the 16 oscillators with a scanner module, and these 4 modulators can Frequency modulate any of the 16 oscillators. I can't think of a really intuitive way to explain it--but it sounds interesting, I promise!
The pitches of all the oscillators, again, are tuned by ratios, which you can see in the picture up there, and also in the patch when you open it. It might seem a little foreign, using the ratios, but it's actually pretty intuitive after you get the hang of it.
I only included one of the bell sounds in this patch--I haven't programmed all of them in yet. And i'm not one to keep secrets, but I don't want to give it all away! I will probably be using these bells to write some music i'll be releasing in the future, so hey... maybe i'll release all the bell patches after I'm done with that ;).
And as usual, this patch (and reaktor in general) is fairly CPU intense. Not too bad, but with my dual core 2.33 ghz I and 3 notes polyphony I get 15% CPU.
Here are a couple audio examples:
This one with a little verb... sorta loud
link
This one just raw, and quieter
link
These are really just demos... for the sound of the patch. Not tracks at all.
My last patch I released was quite buggy actually, but nobody mentioned it! I didn't realize the problems with it until after I released it. But this one works well, and is fairly simple to use. I'd love to hear if anyone uses it, or what they thought of it!
enjoy! | |
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08/26/07
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khoral
There was a guy some time ago selling Bach's excel spreadsheet on ebay, but it ran waaaay too high for me to get them for your birthday
08/26/07
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slp
this is lovely! i love bells + clangs too.. nice idea
too bad i have reaktor4 only
08/26/07
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flies
one thing i might add is a hammer sound. why did you choose to make the inharmonic ( link  partials harmonic? is that required by the reaktor additive modules?
regardless of the above, the samples are sweet!
08/26/07
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jack123
very nice ensemble.
08/26/07
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ricemutt
thanks for checking it out everyone.
hehe, inharnomic... I get that stuff mixed up...
yeah, well I guess there are different definitions of harmonic-- if you're talking about partials that line up with the overtone series, there are very few at all, but what I did was find the closest ratio in a 43-tone microtonal scale. So I wasn't necessariy making them harmonic, I was just finding the nearest tones out of a certain set of tones that I decided to use. I Just have been working with just intonation a lot, and I liked the idea of kind of "condensing" the information down to ratios. Maybe I just like the idea.. I could have used decimal values, and that would have been a lot more precise, but it is nice to see the exact harmonic implications of all the partials--say, there are a lot of partials that are close to a diminished fifth or a pythagorean seventh, and then I can use that information when I'm composing the music as well, or transfer the ratios over to the other synth that I made recently:
link
08/26/07
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flies
43-tone microtonal sounds good enough to me. it would be odd to make a bell synth where all the partials where integer multiples of the fundamental, and clearly that is not the case here.
08/26/07
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sprouts
more like ricemutt reaktor ballz
08/26/07
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ricemutt
yeah flies.. and I dno' think it would ever sound like a bell!
08/27/07
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yghartsyrt
great stuff. an amazing read and some really cool sounds.
thanks for that patch
08/27/07
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chimplogic
jeesh. you are making some very interesting reaktor patches sir. i applaud you for the patience and creativity. that program intimidates me
anyway, thanks for the share as always!
peace
08/27/07
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wakax
very interesting !
thanks ricemut.
08/27/07
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ricemutt
no prob! enjoy!
08/27/07
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a2n3d7y
Great work. Thank you very much.
08/28/07
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ricemutt
I updated the synth... made a few minor changes. There's a new 'additive' osc, where you can add even more partials if you want, and also other more standard oscillators, and some other things.
link
08/30/07
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a2n3d7y
Nice. More snaps please!
I noticed something. When the table is in re-trigger mode it re-triggers at note-on AND at note-off. Is that a bug or a feature?
:-)
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