Tonalizer

A bank of tuned resonators that wraps any sound in a chord. Feed it drums and the hits ring out as pitched chord stabs; feed it sustained or noisy material and it grows a tonal halo at the notes you've chosen. Stereo in, stereo out, with each side ringing independently so a wide source stays wide.

How it works

Up to four short feedback comb resonators are tuned to the intervals of a chord. Their delay lengths are pitch-quantized to a root note and a chord shape, so anything you push through excites them at those exact pitches. With the loop's feedback set by Decay and its damping set by Tone, transients bloom into sustained, vaguely vocal-sounding chords while the original timbre still colours the result.

Controls

  • Root — the chord's root note, chromatic from C to B.
  • Chord — the interval set the resonators are tuned to: 32 choices stepping from UNI through single intervals and octaves, common triads (MAJ, MIN, DIM, AUG, SUS2, SUS4), and seventh/colour chords (DOM7, MAJ7, MIN7, DIM7, ADD9, and more). Wider chords spread across more resonators.
  • Mix — dry/wet blend. Fully up is pure chord ring (its default); pull back to sit the tuned tails underneath the untouched source.
  • Decay — how long each tuned voice rings. Down low the chord lands as a short, percussive stab; up high it blooms into a long, sustained tonal halo that hangs well past the source.
  • Tone — the brightness of those ringing tails. Down low they ring bright and metallic; turn it up to damp the highs for a darker, mellower halo.

Inputs & outputs

  • inL / inR — the stereo source to resonate; patch a drum, a voice, or noise.
  • Root / Chord / Mix / Decay / Tone CV — voltage control over each knob; patch an LFO or envelope to sweep the root, step the chord shape, swell the wet blend, stretch the ring length, or open and close the tone.
  • outL / outR — the resonated stereo result.

Tips

  • Percussive and transient material excites the resonators hardest — drum loops, clicks, and plucks turn into rhythmic chord stabs.
  • Sequence chordcv from a step sequencer to walk through a progression while a single source drones underneath.
  • For a subtle tuning effect rather than a full chord wash, ease Mix down so the resonant tails just reinforce the source.