Nodal: Shape Synth

The instrument is a shape: where you touch it sets the timbre and the sand draws what is sounding. For Mac, iPad and iPhone, with AUv3.

Nodal — A synth that plays shapes.

THE SHAPE IS THE INSTRUMENT A string, a pipe, a bar, a membrane, a triangle, a circle, a plate, a box of air, a tine or a bell. Each shape vibrates in its own ways, and those ways of vibrating are the partials of the sound. There are no oscillators and no samples: there is a shape and the mathematics of how it moves.

WHERE YOU TOUCH IT SETS THE TIMBRE Touching the centre does not sound like touching near the edge: each point wakes some partials and leaves others asleep. You strike it, bow it or blow it, and the clamp holds the shape at one point, like the finger that draws a harmonic from a string.

THE SAND DRAWS WHAT IS SOUNDING There is sand on the shape. As it sounds, the sand leaves the places where the shape moves and gathers where it stays still: it is the Chladni figure of what is sounding right now, and it changes with every note and every spot.

MADE FOR PLAYING Thirty-one factory sounds, eight macros per sound, MUTATE for variations, a keyboard or a multi-finger ribbon with one MOD per finger, MIDI with LEARN, MPE, Program Change and Ableton Link. For Mac, iPad and iPhone, with an Audio Unit (AUv3) for your DAW.

One purchase for Mac, iPad, iPhone and the Audio Unit. No accounts, no ads and no in-app purchases. It collects no data.