yeah, but a sympathetic string is going to resonate for a long time, i.e. it will be a filter with a very high “Q”. Vocoder doesn’t do that usually. Also vocoder banks are not tuned to really specific frequencies, like they are an octave wide. Again, the Q is way too low. They just aren’t designed for that.
Whereas a tuned resonator is always used to synthesize a decaying string. aka Karplus-strong synthesis.
Typically the sympathetic strings only span a little more than an octave so there are only a few that have octave counterparts, but no, they only ring when you hit the exact note.
My sitar has 12 sympathetic strings which get tuned to the notes of the raga, usually doubling up on the root note (Sa).
Bit of a tangent.
The PRISM collection does offer highly resonant bandpass filters. Either as a single bandpass filter unit in Prism Droplet or as a preconfigured (but pretty flexible) filterbank in Prism Rainbow VCV Library - Prism, where you can add Prism Spectrum to create user-defined scales for Rainbow.
BTW, I don’t think resonant filters will work to emulate the desired spectrally rich sympathetic strings of a Sitar.
Highly resonant filters go towards (self)resonance at ever smaller bandwidths, until they (self)resonate at a single frequency, a sine (often at pretty high relative amplitudes). If you want long decays as well, e.g. using a feedback loop, things will soon be pretty unstable and spiral out of control real fast.
But it can be fun and interesting to incorporate a resonant filter(bank) nonetheless. So…for those who want to go in that direction: PRISM gives you the options…
Creating the note bend is working pretty well using an ADSR and VCA and ADD to add a small CV to the v/oct note. And only adding it occasionally works best.
How to do the resonator strings is still eluding me.
Airwindows has been in the library for 6 weeks or more
I haven’t tried this and it may be totally wrong but intuitively resonator strings vibrate sympathetically with aligned harmonics on the melody or plucked strings right? So can you take your main sound run it through a set of tight tuned to the resonator string frequency, envelope follow that and use that to drive the amplitude of a tuned oscillator at the sympathetic frequency?
I’m playing with the Vult Rescomb 2 resonant comb filter and feeding it chromatic scale semitones to set the resonant frequency. This seems promising
Anyone who has thought about this in some detail, would you recommend that I set up on Rescomb module for each of the 12 sympathetic resonant strings of the sitar? If so, is Rescomb2 polyphonic on the frequency input? It seems to be. I’m using a Submarine SS221 to feed the chromatic scale frequencies to a Merge which then connects to the Rescomb V/oct input. CPU usage for the Rescomb is only 1.3% even with 12 channels input. This sounds pretty good as-is, but there is probably room for improvement.
I have the Rescomb in the MixMaster effects send.
The surge combulator effect is a group of three comb filters wirh adjustable feedback and pan which may also help here
It can also operate polyphonically if you want
That’s not too different from the string vco thoigh and the string vco can take audio in as an excitation source which may also be useful
Thanks. I’m probably have a subscription problem or some such. I will give it another try.
Rescomb2 is sounding fantastic, IMHO. I will try to record and post some sound here this afternoon (Texas time).
Thought so. Rescomb 1 was fairly key to me getting a banjo sound I was chasing.
Here is a short demo of my psuedoraga with sitar and tabla and Jawari and drone, using Vult Opulus for sitar and Vult Rescomb2 for 12 sympathetic resonant strings. Note bend is included. Tabla is emulated with Ohmer Modules QuadPercs modules. This is not perfect, but I think it is a good beginning.
Thanks to all of you who made various suggestions on modules and techniques to use.
Pseudoraga Vult Opulus Sitars2 and Tabla Vult Rescomb Resonator-1.vcv (13.8 KB)
If anyone would like to do a patch utilizing the Surge XT Combulator as a 12 sympathetic strings resonator, I would love to see it. I can’t wrap my mind around how to accomplish this in the way or similar to how I used the Vult Rescomb2
Setting up Surge XT Combulator as a 12 sympathetic strings resonator…well…we can try…
Assuming you already have an Exciter, (that plays the notes, which might even be another Surge XT Combulator).
Apparently the default tuning is in D and according to this table (just copying the tuning from some random source here…)
1st |-- D -- Sa -- 0.008 gauge
2nd |-- C# -- Ni -- 0.008
3rd |-- D -- Sa -- 0.008
4th |-- E -- Re -- 0.008
5th |-- F -- Ga -- 0.008
6th |-- F# -- Ga -- 0.008
7th |-- G -- Ma -- 0.008
8th |-- A -- Pa -- 0.008
9th |-- B -- Dha -- 0.008
10th |-- C -- Ni -- 0.008
11th |-- D -- Sa -- 0.008
12th |-- E -- E -- 0.008
13th |-- F -- Ga -- 0.008
...Here is a ~minimal pseudoraga patch with Jawari, sitar and tabla with sitar resonant strings and note bends. In this, I manually played with the Clocked BPM to speed up and slow down. Not sure I would do the tempo speed up and slow down again, but here it is.
Pseudoraga Minimal-1.vcv (10.0 KB)
Setting up Surge XT Combulator as a Comb filter based Plucked String / Exciter and 12 Sympathetic strings Resonator Sitar as described in my previous post.
Here’s a quick & dirty video and the patch…
20230329 POC Sitar Combfilter based Exciter and Resonator.vcv (5.8 KB)
In order to make my minimal patch more accurately emulate a sitar, I added a 2nd Rescomb2 resonant comb filter with the frequencies raised an octave, My understanding is that the sitar typically has 12-13 resonant stings which are tuned to scale notes and thus spans 2 octaves. In my case, I use the chromatic scale for the string frequencies rather than the actual scale.
Your POC sounds pretty good. I definitely hear the sympathetic strings. Thanks for patching that up.
Thank YOU.
Generally it’s fun to (be) set some challenge in the problem domain (e.g. create a Sitar with 12 sympathetic strings) where there are (severe) limitations in the solution domain (e.g. core solution must be based on Surg XT Combulator).
Limiting options is generally a great way to spark creativity.
I hope this sort of stuff will give you (and others) additional tools to put in their virtual toolbox, thus helping sparking and realizing creative ideas.
About the patch. As said it’s (another) quick and dirty POC. If some dedicated attention is spent on the various Combulator parameters/variables like subtle detuning, filtering, resonator feedback and amplitude/mix levels, things can be improved/adapted to taste/preference.
