Audio node
Gamelan Synth
A gamelan that never stops: generated or corpus balungan on slendro/pelog/degung/kebyar tunings, elaborated by sections (gongs, saron, peking, bonang, gender, gambang, kendhang, Balinese kotekan, suling) that share one conductor. Episodes mode: a gamelan heard across a square now and then — a soloist's opening, interlocking cycles, a final gong, then a long rest (Terremoti Vulcana's), gated by a cabled Density. Add several inside an Audio Modular System.
Inputs
| Port | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|
| EnableTurns this section off without removing it. Ringing bronze finishes its decay. | bool | true |
| NotesIn Play Notes mode the stream plays this section: MIDI notes snap to the nearest tone of the tuning on the section's main instrument (kendhang: note mod 12 = the stroke; suling: pitches straight through). Ignored while performing. | float | — |
| InstrumentWhich part of the ensemble this instance is. Ensemble is the whole gamelan reduced into one voice bank; Gongs, Balungan, Peking, Bonang, Gender, Gambang, Kendhang, Kotekan and Suling are the full parts — add several inside one system, they share one conductor. | int | 0 |
| ModePerform: the section elaborates the shared piece. Play Notes: the Notes stream plays it and the performance knobs fold away. Episodes: now and then an episode — a soloist's opening, interlocking cycles, a final gong — then a long rest (Terremoti Vulcana's gamelan); every section plays its part of the same episode. | int | 0 |
| LeadThe leader sets the piece for every Gamelan Synth in the container — tuning, pathet, form, piece, irama, complexity, evolve. Followers (off) hide those knobs and play the leader's piece. With several on, the first leads. | bool | true |
| LevelOutput volume. Clamped to 0…1.5. | float | 0.8 |
| TuningThe laras, as a table of cents from the corpus: Slendro (five near-equal steps), Slendro Kraton (the palace's deviations), Pelog (seven, narrow and wide), Degung (Sundanese five), Gong Kebyar (Balinese). Auto lets the seed choose. | int | 0 |
| PathetThe mode: which tones phrases lean on and which the gong falls on. Slendro Nem/Sanga/Manyura, Pelog Lima/Nem/Barang, Degung, Selisir. Auto follows the tuning. | int | 0 |
| FormThe colotomic cycle: Lancaran/Bubaran/Ketawang (16 beats), Ladrang (32), Gilak (Balinese 8). Auto lets the seed choose (Gilak for Kebyar). | int | 0 |
| PieceGenerate builds an endless piece on the classical grammar; the named entries are the corpus balungan (Udan Mas, Pangkur, Puspawarna, Manyar Sewu, Ricik-Ricik, Gilak, and the synthetic ones). | int | 0 |
| IramaHow slow the skeleton walks and how densely the others fill it: Lancar (fast, 1 stroke per beat), Tanggung (2), Wiled (4), Rangkep (8). Changes land at the next gongan. | int | 1 |
| ComplexityLeader only. More gongans, more leaps and upper-register phrases in generated pieces, richer kotekan (ubit telu) and rare kebyar bursts. Clamped to 0…1. | float | 0.4 |
| EvolveLeader only. The chance, at every gongan boundary, that one note of the balungan mutates (a step, a rest, swapped gatras) — seleh tones never move. 0 repeats forever, 1 drifts every cycle. Clamped to 0…1. | float | 0.3 |
| DensityHow much of this section's elaboration sounds — the off-strokes of peking, bonang, gender, gambang, kotekan, the kendhang's ciblon fills. Gongs and the skeleton always play. Clamped to 0…1. Episodes: an episode starts only while Density is above 0.25 — cable a Form's Density. | float | 0.8 |
| HandHuman timing and velocity scatter. Clamped to 0…1. | float | 0.25 |
| BaseMIDI note of degree 1 in the middle octave (60 = the corpus base, 261.6 Hz). Moves the whole tuning; the suling follows. Clamped to 36…84. | float | 60 |
| OmbakBeating between the paired instruments (pengumbang / pengisep) in Hz — every partial gets a twin at this offset. Javanese sets shimmer at 1–2 Hz, Balinese at 5–8. Clamped to 0…12. | float | 1.5 |
| DampingHow firmly the previous key of a damped instrument (saron, demung, slenthem, peking, gender, gangsa) is pinched as the next is struck: 1 = 20 ms, 0 = it rings almost 0.8 s. Clamped to 0…1. | float | 0.8 |
| MalletSoft padded (dark, longer strike) to hard wooden/horn (bright, sharp). Clamped to 0…1. | float | 0.5 |
| RingDecay scale of all the bronze — 0.5 is the corpus's measured decays. Clamped to 0…1. | float | 0.5 |
| BreathSuling only: how much air is heard beside the tone. Clamped to 0…1. | float | 0.5 |
| MeendSuling only: legato glide time between the notes of a phrase (luk). Clamped to 0…1. | float | 0.5 |
| AnalogPer-strike scatter of tuning and damping — no two strikes identical. Clamped to 0…1. | float | 0.3 |
| SpaceStereo width of the ensemble's seating: gongs centre, bonang left, kenong right, kotekan polos/sangsih apart. Clamped to 0…1. | float | 0.6 |
| SeedThe identity of a generated piece and of every section's choices: the same seed plays the same gamelan. | int | 0 |
| Max VoicesVoices this section may sound at once. Clamped to 1…8. | int | 8 |
| RestEpisodes: seconds of rest after an episode, at least (up to 2.5 × this, at random). The first episode may come after a quarter of it. Terremoti: 240. | float | 240 |
| StartEpisodes: a rising edge starts an episode now (if none is playing). | bool | false |
| BellEpisodes: a rising edge strikes one high bell — Terremoti marks every felt earthquake with it. | bool | false |
Outputs
| Port | Type |
|---|---|
| NotesIn Play Notes mode the stream plays this section: MIDI notes snap to the nearest tone of the tuning on the section's main instrument (kendhang: note mod 12 = the stroke; suling: pitches straight through). Ignored while performing. | float |
| Beat | int |
| Gong | bool |
| Kenong | bool |
| Balungan | string |
| Playing | string |
| Gongan | int |
How It Works
One instance is one SECTION — Ensemble, Gongs, Balungan, Peking, Bonang, Gender, Gambang, Kendhang, Kotekan (Bali) or Suling — and every instance inside a container plays the SAME piece through one shared conductor. Pieces are either generated on the classical grammar (kenong phrases into seleh, pathet gong tones, nibani and gantungan figures) or taken from eleven corpus balungan; Evolve mutates a note per gongan so the piece drifts forever, and Irama changes phase-continuously.
The bronze is physics: inharmonic pots and gongs with paired detuning that produces real ombak beating, and kotekan interlocking between sections.
Use Cases
- A full gamelan — add several Gamelan Synths in one system, each a different section.
- Endless piece — Evolve on, and it never repeats itself exactly.
- Tuning study — Slendro, Slendro Kraton, Pelog, Sundanese Degung and Balinese Kebyar are all here.
Tips
- Sections share the conductor, so add instances rather than trying to make one node do everything.
- Irama is a density level, not a tempo: the pulse stays, the elaboration doubles.
Open Gamelan Synth in the interactive catalog →
Gamelan Synth is one of 381 nodes in Grafit Pro.
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