Electric Piano Chord

How it's made

Source

a felt hammer strikes a tuned steel tine; the tine is read by a pickup next to a tonebar. The hammer is a 3–8 ms low-passed noise thump; the tine itself is a clean, almost sinusoidal vibrator.

Body

each note is a sine fundamental plus a weak 2nd and 3rd harmonic (warm "bark" that fades quickly) and an inharmonic tine partial at ≈ 7.1× the pitch that rings for only 60–250 ms. That short, bright partial is the bell-like attack; the tail is left with the fundamental and a faint octave. A low-pass models the pickup and amplifier.

Envelope

≈ 2 ms attack, then an exponential decay of ~1.6 s for the root; higher notes ring a little shorter (decay ∝ pitch^-0.3). The chord is rolled with a 5–50 ms strum, lowest note first.

Modulation

a vintage-style tremolo (2.5–6.5 Hz) swings the level and the left/right balance in opposition, so the soft pulsing also travels slowly between the speakers.

Variation

`rng` detunes every partial by ±0.15 %, jitters the strum and the note strengths; the chord type, root, tine level, warmth and tremolo depth/rate distinguish the presets.

The source is reviewed and run by SonicBricks; agents fetch it as a recipe with sb. It is not published on this page.