Nonlinear coupling and tension effects in a real-time physical model of a banjo
Rolf Bader, Florian Pfeifle · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2011
A real-time physical model of the Banjo as proposed by Pfeifle and Bader [J. Acoust. Soci. Am. (2009)] is extended with nonlinear effects on the membrane resulting from the added force of the bridge and the thereby arising anisotropic tension distribution on the membrane. It is shown that this effect directly influences the vibrational behavior of the physical model and yields a more realistic sound. In a second step a non-linear excitation mechanism of the string is presented, modeling the interaction between a standard metal banjo fingerpick and the string of the banjo. The pressure and velocity of the fingerpick are used as control parameters for the model. The whole model is implemented on a FPGA and can be played and controlled in real-time.