THE HELMHOLTZ RESONATOR TREE

Title
THE HELMHOLTZ RESONATOR TREE
Authors
Rafael C. D. Paiva and Vesa Välimäki . Dept. of Signal Procesing and Acoustics, Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering, Espoo, Finland
Abstract
The Helmholtz resonator is a prototype of a single acoustic resonance, which can be modeled with a digital resonator. This paper extends this concept by coupling several Helmholtz resonators. The resulting structure is called a Helmholtz resonator tree. The height of the tree is defined by the number of resonator layers, which are interconnected. The overall number of resonance frequencies of a Helmholtz resonator tree is the same as its height. A Helmholtz resonator tree can be modeled using Wave Digital Filters (WDF), when electro-acoustic analogies are applied. A WDF tool for implementing Helmholtz resonator trees has been developed in C++. A VST plugin and an Android mobile application were created, which can run short Helmholtz resonator trees in real time. Helmholtz resonator trees can be used for the real-time synthesis of percussive sounds and for realizing novel filtering, which can be tuned using intuitive physical parameters.
Status
Submitted to Proc. of the 15th Int. Conference on Digital Audio Effects (DAFx-12) , York, UK , September 17-21, 2012 .
Sound samples
Ilustrative videos
  • Examples for evaluation of tree structure effect
  • Impedance variation for a Type 0, 3 x 2 resonator tree
  • Volume variation at H00 resonator.
  • Volume variation at H10 resonator.
  • Volume variation at H20 resonator.

 


Author: Rafael Paiva
Modified: 22.7.2012, Rafael Paiva

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