<History>
In conversation with a friend, I was told about Oscar Peterson, and what a practical joker he was.
For instance, he would detune the Bass player's Double Bass whilst he was off stage. Then when said Bass player came back on, keep him talking until it was time to play - at which point there would be realisation by the jokee that he was playing totally the wrong notes and have to compensate on the fly...

After many tricks, the band decided to get even. One such pay back was to put ball bearings on the strings of Oscar's Steinway Grand, so with every note played, there would be a bizarre delayed timbre.

This trick rather caught my imagination, and I wondered how I could emulate it.
</History>

<Balls>
This plug allows 4 'Ball Bearings' to bounce on in the incoming audio. There are a variety of parameters which control the resultant sound:

Size of ball: length of sample taken
Weight of ball: 'Loudness' of sample playback
Squidgyness of ball: Oh yes! Virtual Ball Bearings can morph into soggy wet paper bags... Actually this parameter should be 'Hardness', but I preferred my original term. A High value will give more bounces, a low value fewer (have you ever tried playing tennis with a soggy wet paper bag?)
Height ball dropped from: determines the time between 'Bounces'
Pan: ..you can work that one out...
Boing: determines whether the sample 'boings' (actually LP/HP filter)
Rez: ..again, I won't patronise you!
Spatial: just listen..
Bouncing: now here I draw the line - if you can't get this one...

Once a bounce has run it's course, it automatically bounces again.

Each ball is fully automatable via VST automation.
I was going to make it all random, but then the good take/ bad take thing could really irritate people.
Like the Titanic, this plug is virtually unsyncable. With some art, you could get it in shape, but it doesn't care about tempo - it drops balls.
</Balls>

<Theory>
There is NO physical modelling here.
I ignored Newton too.

The deterioration of the bounce is driven by the Weight of the ball and the Height.
When the current loudness falls below a predetermined level, or the gap between bounces is negligable, the bounce is restarted.

If anything this uses a Kerplunk/Phong algorithm - you get nicely shaded marbles on your audio.
</Theory>

Let me know what you think.

http://www.dsparsons.co.uk/Balls.zip

DSP

It’s well presented for sure – hey I like the concept and I can hear what effect it has on a constant note once I took it off of its initial settings and enabled bounce.

What I am getting is a crackly type noise too, sounds like static – I had a go at two different sample rates but its evident at 44100 and 48000, if that got ironed out I reckon it would make a really cool special delay. I tested it in FL Studio and with an Audigy2 Platinum sound card.

Regards,

Spe3d

I have had that static too...

What happens is that it samples effectively random points of the audio. So the sample may be click noise. This then gets replayed, with the filtering, etc. With Large settings, this may go on some time...

I might put a kind of quick-attack gate on the first 2ms of audio. This might help the problem.

Update might not get posted 'til Monday, I've got a busy couple of days. We'll see how this afternoon goes.

Glad you liked it, I was pleasantly surprised!
If the bounce comes in the middle of the some sound, the 'static' isn't there...

HTH
DSP

Cool , the adjustment to attack might help, the random point explains the crackle – I will try the mid sample bounce idea – the automation will help with this too, groovy

I will check out your update as well when it comes out.

Regards,

Spe3d

Must confess, this is one of those things that gets done when there's alot of other stuff going on, and I need a distraction to help me do the other stuff better when I get back to it....

So: did the update. Put a linear attack on the first 88 samples (approx 2ms@44100), also put some smoothing to prevent the hard clipping that was there. It produced some nasty distortion. Potentially, if all 4 balls give 0db at the same moment, and the signal itself is at that level, then you get a whapping great sound like concorde being hit by nicely shaded marbles. thx www.musicdsp.org!

It's on the above link.
Any Probs, let me know.

BTW, if you leave the squidge on 100, theorectically the same sample will play and play and play. But I think there's an error stopping that. I'll look at it - that really will be Monday!

DSP

Hi! An update already I got it of the .co.uk site link, small problem though the .dll is half the size of the original one I tested and now this new .dll will not load because its looking for another file called rtl60.bpl, probably this was included with the original .dll.

I will have to take a closer look at the musicdsp site too, that looks cool



Regards,

Spe3d

is the zip file broken

Yep! it seems to be now, it was not earlier mind you, I reckon we won’t see it till Monday now though. Should be fun

Regards,

Spe3d

Unexpected end of archive.

1.62 Kb.

Just thought that you might want to know.

7XL

Quickest weekend I've ever seen...

Uploaded corrected version. ISP trouble meant a broken archive.

Also, lowered the thresholds, so bounce will continue until the gaps are less than 1ms, or the bounce vol slips v low.

Noticed one or two other bits: they WILL wait til monday!

Enjoy
DSP

Looks cool... I'll try it out later today...

Forever,




Kim.

Right v1.02 has been uploaded.

Now sensitive to sample rate.
Squidgyness now works logically - 0 : Infinitely hard ball
100 : Infinitely squidgy ball

Tell me what you think.

DSP

hm , balls makes too much short click noises

any solution for this ?

I thought I had solved the click thing...

If one click gets into the delay, then, being a delay, it repeats...

when that happens, try stop the bounce and restarting. If that doesn't help, there must be something else going on.

What samplerate are you using?

TIA
DSP

hi

i use cubase sx 1.06 at 44.1 khz, 16 bit
amd 2400 mhz, 512 mb ram, m-audio delta 66, windows 2000 professional

would love to see that fixed because your plugin is really good for percussionloops

Thanks

Glad you like it.
I've done some more testing my self. I'll try and get rid of them. I think it's the 'opening' and 'closing' of audio in replay that causes the clicks.

I'll see what I can do!!!!

DSP

thx

Right v1.03 is up. I've improved the gating, and a few other bits that had been annoying me.

See how you go. I've done some testing, and am fairly happy, by a second opinion is rarely a bad thing!

I'm been really suprised by the interest, and would like to hear any uses of it (it was built as an experiment, rather than to be used!!!!)

DSP