Originally posted on acidboxblues.com.

I was messing around with using really short delays to produce metallic sounds. I was then informed this is called Karplus Strong synthesis. I created a abelton effects rack to control the effect and some other associated effects.

The audio signal goes into a gate – you’ll have to adjust the threshold to suit your incoming signal. The duration macro control controls the hold of the gate , so you can set the length of the signal coming into the effect, short blips or longer sounds. The signal is then saturated, the drive macro controls the amount of saturation. The signal passes through a bit reducer- the macro turns this on and off, depending if you want a bit more crunch in your sounds. Then there is an auto filter, again you can turn this on or off with the macro and also change the filter type. You might want to adjust filter to your liking. I find it gives the sound a bit of movement. Then comes the delay, the macro’s control the pitch – length of the delay and you can set left and right to different pitches using the macros. The pitch amount macro controls the amount of feedback. You’ll have to adjust the wet/dry manually.

This can create some really nice percussive metallic sounds right through to some more industrial drones. Enjoy the rack.