CAST · BELL · synth · inharmonic partials · pentatonic
Bell.
A bell synthesizer. Five sine partials per strike, each decaying at its own rate — the way a real bell shimmers. Pick a type, tap a pitch. Five pitches in pentatonic so any combination rings clean.
BELL
Tap a bell. Strike with 1–5. Bells can ring simultaneously — they don't cut each other off.
How a bell makes its sound
Hit a bell with a clapper and you don't get one note — you get a stack of partials, and they don't line up the way they would on a piano string. Bells are inharmonic. The classic recipe is roughly:
Hum tone — the deepest partial, slowest to die, ratio 1.0
Prime — an octave above the hum, ratio 2.0
Tierce — a minor third above the prime, ratio 2.4 (this is why bells sound a touch melancholy)
Quint — a fifth above the prime, ratio 3.0
Nominal — two octaves above the hum, ratio 4.0, where you hear the "name" of the bell
Each partial gets its own exponential decay — slow for the hum, fast for the nominal. Decay times vary by bell type: a handbell rings out in 2 seconds, a gong takes 18. Five sine oscillators per strike, scheduled at one moment in AudioContext.currentTime, summed into a master gain.
