Gravity vibraphone
A 3D vibraphone: drop balls onto the bars you choose. Steel sounds metallic, a tennis ball warm and muted, a ping-pong ball bounces across the scale.
Dropper
Sound
Session
Instrument
Line
Balls fall straight down from the droppers. Which bars they hit and how they bounce depends on where the instrument is: move and rotate it with the X, Y and Z sliders. Everything you place and draw lies in the drop plane – where the balls fall. Clicking the stage drops a ball from every dropper (each one drops its own ball from the “Droppers” list). Dragging over empty space draws a rod for balls to bounce off; drag a rod to move it, or drag one of its ends to change its length and angle. Droppers can be dragged anywhere too. With “Dropper +” on, a click places a new dropper exactly where you click or removes the one you click. Keyboard: Space or Enter – drop, 1–6 – ball for new droppers, D – dropper +, A – rhythm, P – pedal, M – motor, R – starting position, [ ] – select line, Z – undo line, C – clear.
About the experiment
Every ball has a real mass, bounciness and friction. How long it touches the bar shapes the spectrum: hard steel and glass excite the high, untuned modes of the aluminium and sound metallic, while a soft tennis ball brings out mostly the warm fundamental. Mass and speed set the volume.
Move and rotate the instrument, draw and drag rods for the balls to bounce off, and place droppers anywhere – each with its own ball, also on the metronome beat. The pedal sustains the notes, and the motor adds the signature shimmer.