Millstone Grind

How it's made

Source

two loaded millstones rub continuously; pink noise models distributed asperity friction, with overlapping 18-65 ms noise grains for crushed particles rather than isolated impact clicks.

Body

heavily damped stone contact bands at 75-140 Hz and 210-390 Hz reinforce a 38-210 Hz rumble. Broad Q 0.9-1.1 body bands and Q 2.8-3.2 friction bands avoid sustained ringing; no reverb is baked in.

Envelope

3-8 revolutions per 8 s. A smooth once-per-turn pressure hump and a weaker twice-per-turn furrow ripple modulate rumble, friction level and cutoff together; the mill never stops between pulses.

Spectrum

friction occupies 320 Hz to 1.6-4.5 kHz, brightening under load. Eight furrow crossings per turn impose rounded 3-8 Hz rasp pulses on broad 430 and 770 Hz contact bands. Aperiodic 7 Hz contact fluctuations and slow seeded wear variation keep the pressure pattern from sounding electronic.

Events

24-72 grain contacts per second, seeded strength, colour and pan, with 3-7 ms soft attacks. More particles are crushed under the high-pressure sector; grain bandwidth stays below 5 kHz.

Variation

turns sets rotation, mass lowers body bands, grit controls particle density and brightness, unevenness deepens rotation pulses. Four presets cover working, massive, fine and uneven millstones.

Loop

all rotation harmonics complete whole cycles in 8 s; the engine crossfades stochastic beds.

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