An introductory catalog of computer-synthesized contact sound, in real-time

As part of the SOb European project several cartoon models of contact sounds of solid bodies, “hitting”, “bouncing”, “dropping”, “breaking”, “rolling”, have been developed and implemented as modules (and sub-patches) for free real-time sound software pd 1. The models are accessed through perceptually meaningful parameters and run with low computational load on standard PC hardware. The underlying idea of cartoonification, its motivation and background in psychoacoustic research are sketched first. The main common sound-core of most models, a physics-based algorithm of impact-interaction with interacting resonators in modal description, is shortly presented. The impact module is embedded in patches of higher-level control to model more complex contact scenarios. The structure, use and potential of the resulting sound objects is described. While the results are a possible basis for reactive sonic interfaces in Human-Computer-Interaction, they can as well be exploited for musical purposes.