Designing Software Synthesizer Plugins in C++, 2nd Edition

13     Karplus-Strong Plucked String Model

In its simplest form, physical modeling involves creating DSP components that combine to behave like their physical counterparts, such as a pendulum or a resonating mass-spring system. The theory may be used for modeling strings, tubes, or struck-metal plates, or practically any other acoustic/mechanical system or effect, such as a piano or the reverb effect. The Yamaha VL-1^®, Korg Prophecy^®, and OASYS^® are examples of early, commercially available physical modeling synthesizers. Today, the GeoShred^® mobile app uses physical string modeling as its synthesis core. This area has matured over several decades, including texts dedicated specifically to the science. In this chapter, we will study one of the ...