A Modular Percussion Synthesis Environment

The construction of new virtual instruments is one long-ter m goal of physical modeling synthesis; a common strategy across va rious different physical modeling methodologies, including lum ped network models, modal synthesis and scattering based methods, is to provide a canonical set of basic elements, and allow the user to build an instrument via certain specified connection rules. Such an environment may be described as modular. Percussion instruments form a good test-bed for the development of modular synthesis techniques—the basic componen ts are bars and plates, and may be accompanied by connection elements, with a nonlinear character. Modular synthesis has b een approached using all of the techniques mentioned above, but time domain finite difference schemes are an alternative, allowi ng many problems inherent in the above methods, including computab ility, large memory and precomputation requirements, and lack of e xtensibility to more complex systems, to be circumvented. One such network model is presented here along with the associated difference schemes, followed by a discussion of impl e entation details, the issues of excitation and output, and a de scription of various instrument configurations. The article conclude s with a presentation of simulation results, generated in the Matla b prototyping language.