Comb Synthesis is a basic physical model: a resonator that you can hit with an impulse. The sounds it produces are reminiscent of physically produced vocal or percussive sounds.

An impulse is fed into a delay line with feedback. The length of the delay line controls the echo repetition rate (i.e. the resonant Frequency) of the resonator. The amount of feedback controls the rate at which each impulse dies away (anything from a deadened thunk to an oscillator). The rate at which you read through the excitation waveform controls the formants of the excitation (since the distance between the 'bumps' in an impulse response implies something about the size of the object). The rate at which new impulses hit the object is like the frequency of a glottal pulse before it hits the formant filtering properties of the vocal tract.

There are several examples in the Sound file: one basic example with VCS controls, one whose parameters are controlled by an AcceleratingSequencer, a couple whose parameters are controlled by time-varying functions, and a couple with randomized parameters.

-- CarlaScaletti - 18 Nov 2003