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Chapter 13 Sculpture 238
Sculpture string parameters
Sculpture string overview
The string is responsible for the basic tone of your sound. You can dene its material—what it’s
made of—and determine its behavior when bowed, plucked, struck, and so on.
The string itself doesn’t make a sound unless it is stimulated—excited or disturbed—by at least
one object. Up to three dierent types of objects are used to excite, disturb, or damp the string
(make it vibrate or aect its movement). See Sculpture objects overview on page 244.
Sculpture’s string and the excite/disturb objects are similar to the oscillators in traditional
synthesizers. The string is considerably more sophisticated in concept than simple oscillators,
however.
In essence, you are creating the waveform, or base timbre, by mathematically describing the
string’s properties, and the properties of its environment. These include, among others, the
material the string is made of; the thickness, length, and tension of the string; its characteristics
over time; the atmosphere it is being played in (such as water or air); and the way it is being
played—struck, bowed, and so on.
Sculpture goes far beyond the mere creation of an innite number of base timbres, however.
One of the key dierences between Sculpture’s string and a traditional synthesizer waveform
is that the base timbre provided by the string is in a constant state of ux. For example, if
Sculpture’s string is still vibrating for a specic note, retriggering that same note will interact
with the ongoing vibration. This is not dissimilar to the eect of repeatedly plucking a guitar
string, where the string is still vibrating when the next note is played. This will alter the harmonic
spectrum each time—which is why acoustic guitars sound organic when a note is played
repeatedly, and sampled guitars don’t.
This is quite dierent from other synthesis methods where the base timbre waveform, even if
modulated, does not harmonically interact with currently audible notes when retriggered. What
usually happens in traditional synthesizers is that the waveform is restarted—from mid-cycle, or
from the beginning—with the result being an increase in volume, or a slight cyclical wave shift.
The string parameters apply on a per-voice basis. You will note a number of parameter names
followed by (morphable). This indicates that the parameters can be morphed between up to ve
morph points. See Sculpture morph overview on page 278.
Media Loss sliders
Hide, Keyscale, and
Release View buttons
Tension Mod(ulation)
sliders
Material Pad
Resolution sliders