Damping Parts of an Instrument

    setDamping(<d>)
    setDamping(<x>,<d>)
    setDamping(<x>,<y>,<d>)
    setDamping(<x1>,<x2>,<y1>,<y2>,<d>)
    resetDamping()
    resetDamping(<x>)
    resetDamping(<x>,<y>)
    resetDamping(<x1>,<x2>,<y1>,<y2>)

In each case the argument <d> is a floating point value in the range [0..1], where 0 represents no damping at all and 1 means that the portion of material affected will be locked rigidly in a fixed position. The progression from the former state to the latter as <d> changes from 0 to 1 is logarithmic rather than linear for reasons which are explained below.

The damping value <d> is converted via the following formula into the appropriate velocityMultiplier attribute (see section *):

v_m = 1 - (10000^d)/(10000)

where v_m and d correspond to velocityMultiplier and <d> respectively.

You may remember that the velocityMultiplier value also lies in the range [0..1] and on each tick of the synthesis engine the velocity of each cell is multiplied by this value.

The resetDamping family of methods set the damping back to what it was when the instrument was created. This is useful for situations where it is desirable to temporarily damp a region. An example application might be playing a harmonic on a string. Any guitarist will know that in order to do so a finger is placed momentarily in contact with one of the strings, over a node, whilst (or after) the string is plucked. Once the harmonic begins to clearly ring out the players finger is removed again leaving the string to continue vibrating in its modified pattern.