KARPLUS STRONG — "TELL ME HOW IT SOUNDS"

pop-punk single + official music video — synthesized live in the browser
172 BPMdrop D 2:22102 bars no samplesno libraries Web Audio + Canvas 2D
KARPLUS STRONG
TELL ME HOW IT SOUNDS
every kick, word and pixel is computed from code — headphones recommended
0:00 / 2:22

WHAT YOU ARE HEARING

VOX — formant synthesis

Two detuned saw glottal pulses → three parallel band-pass formant resonators (F1/F2/F3) re-tuned phone by phone from a hand-written pronunciation dictionary. Fricatives are band-limited noise, plosives a closure + burst. Choruses are three detuned voices into a clipper.

GUITARS — drop D power chords

Saw + square per string, strum spread, per-note filter sweep → tanh waveshaper (distortion) → tone stack → cab low-pass → hard-panned pair. - grid bars ring, p bars are palm muted.

BASS — locked to the kick

Sine fundamental + saw grit through a low-pass with an envelope sweep, light saturation; every kick ducks the bass bus 4 dB for 85 ms so the low end pumps.

DRUMS — all waveforms

Kick = pitch-dropping sine (155→46 Hz) + beater click. Snare = band-passed noise + two triangle shells. Hats/cymbals = high-passed noise. Toms for the fills.

MASTER CHAIN

instruments → bus filters → distortion → dotted-8th delay + convolution reverb (generated impulse) → glue compressor → limiter → tanh soft clip.

VIDEO

480×270 canvas upscaled nearest-neighbour. Band actions are read from the same event list the synth schedules: strums, stick hits, kick pedal, and the mouth shape is taken from the phoneme on the timeline right now.

LYRICS

CUE SHEET — on-screen titles & cues