This page is available in English only

Grotto Machines

Phaser Based Physical Modeling Synths

(5 Votes)
Audio Player
NullCode
0.5 (Updated 1 year ago)
1.1MB
January 21, 2024
Reaktor 6

DESCRIPTION

[Everything but the drums in this sound made using Grotto Synth]

Grotto Synth and Grotto Drum are two experimental phaser based physical modeling synths that make sounds that range from atonal and synthetic, to metallic, to wood-like and melodic. It has a distinctly inharmonic quality to it that comes from its use of phasers instead of more traditional modal bank or delay-based resonators.

It needs a bit of work, which is why the version number is 0.5, but I figured that I'd put it here. Most of the remaining issues are GUI and Labeling related

---How To Use Grotto Synth---
So you have the two oscillators both of them are tuned phasers with feedback with an impulse running through them. [Big purple boxes on the left]
- The little thing that says "PULSE" can be dragged to switch to a frequency sweep or a noise impulse- I plan on adding more.
- "STAGES", "DISTRIBUTION" and "WIDTH" control the shape of the phaser and number of peaks. Each allpass filter is represented by a line in the little display to the right
- "FEED" & "FILTER" are pretty explanatory - a lowpass filter to make things decay off, and feedback control.
- "ELASTICITY" crossfades between pure phaser and phaser + delay as a feedback model
- "INHARM" changes the base distribution of the allpass filters from being the harmonic series to evenly spaced notes

Both of the oscillators are fed into the routing module [Little area with the arrows, small dials and menu] - the bottom osc is mod, the top osc is car. The up arrow indicates using the mod oscillator as the impulse for the carrier oscillator. The right arrow indicates the amplitude of the mod oscillator.
The three modes are:
- Add: directly adding the two together
- Mult: ring mod
- Fm: technically not fm, it uses a delay tuned to the time of one cycle and modulates it by the mod oscillator.

Afterwards, the sub and karplus layer are added to the signal.

Everything is fed through the 3 effects on the right, which from top to bottom are a resonator box, distortion, and stereoizer effect.

---Known Issues---

- The stereoizer effect used in both can often cause weird noises and artifacts
- Unfinished GUI on Grotto Synth
- The feedback loops can get real loud when unfiltered.

COMMENTS  (1)

Stijn Vanden Bussche
11 months ago
Great stuff!!!
now