Anukari Music has released Anukari, a software synthesizer based on the idea of creating a network of small masses (like little ball bearings, or marbles) connected by springs.
The masses can be vibrated by striking them via MIDI input, or they can be vibrated directly via audio input, so it can act as an effect processor or reverb plugin.
Features:
- Radically New MIDI Instrument – Create a 3D instrument made from masses and springs, and then use your MIDI keyboard to trigger mallets, plectrums, bows, and traditional oscillators.
- Hook up virtual microphones to pick up the sound the 3D instrument makes. You can keep it simple, or build sprawling systems of hundreds of masses.
- Powerful Effects Processor – Anukari can accept audio input signals, either as a sidechain input alongside MIDI or as the primary input. Create 3D audio signal inputs and connect them to the parts of the physics system you want to vibrate, and then pick up the resulting sounds with virtual microphones.
- Full MPE Support – Works with both “legacy” MIDI and Midi Polyphonic Expression (MPE), so you can use a regular MIDI keyboard or your Linnstrument, Roli Seaboard, Haken Continuum, or other favorite MPE controller with Anukari. All MPE inputs can be custom-mapped to modulate arbitrary physics parameters, or left alone with their satisfying defaults so you can just play.
- In addition to the basic physics objects, there are a ton of options for modulation. Powerful sample-accurate LFOs which can operate all the way up to audio frequency for FM. MIDI-triggered envelopes. Envelope followers. The modulation matrix is simple to understand: it’s displayed via physical connections in the 3D world. And nearly every parameter can be modulated.
- Unleash the Power of Your GPU – Anukari processes audio on your graphics card (GPU), so massive compute power is available to you, leaving your CPU power available for other plugins.
- Plugin and Standalone Mode – You can run Anukari in your favorite DAW on Windows or MacOS as a VST3, AU, or AAX plugin, or run it in standalone mode to play it as a MIDI instrument without the complexity of a DAW.
- Anukari only uses a fraction of your GPU’s resources, so you can easily run multiple instances of the plugin in your DAW.
- Tactile Real-Time 3D Interface – You create the instrument’s physics layout in an intuitive 3D editor, and then see how it vibrates, flexes, spins, and moves in real-time as you play it.
- ‘Unbelievable’ Reverbs – Run external audio sources through any shape of spring system you can think of. Tune the parameters to get dark industrial caverns or crashing plates. Modulate the physics parameters with an LFO to get swirling reverb, and add delay lines for slapback or feedback effects.
- Custom 3D Visuals – Anukari has support for loading fully custom skyboxes and 3D models. Using 3D modeling software like Blender, advanced users can completely replace the 3D visuals, including the animations.
Pricing and Availability:
Anukari is now available as a beta release, with a discounted price of $70 USD (normally $140).
“Powerful sample-accurate LFOs” anyone know what this means?
cool Blender tie ins. that is one crazy cool Open Source animation system! wish we had something like that for musical instrumentation. a variety of interesting synthesis systems like anukari works for PC folks. if there was an open source system, i would build a hardware platofmr for it myself.
by system, i mean an array of synthesis techniques, with an emphasis on physical modeling, with a hierarchical interconnect, modulation, and user interface suitible for threaded of single instance (like Korg Logue), similar to Emilie’s Mutable design suite – which works in a pinch, but memory constrains limit current choices. anyway…. cool product!
I think it’s just saying their LFOs can operate into the audio-rate territory and not get all glitchy.
Yep, “Walking The Line Between 10 and 11” nailed it, it just means that the LFOs can go all the way into audio frequency range (so I guess the “L” in LFO is a misnomer). And for a sine wave LFO, for example, even at low frequencies the sine is calculated per-audio-sample, and not interpolated in any way. (hope that makes sense!)
RE your system ideas, I have not used it but I’ve heard about https://main.audiocube.app/ which seems to be a kind of 3D spatial DAW, it looks really cool and maybe sort of in the space you’re describing.
In digital signal processing (DSP), every operation is executed within a buffer, and this introduces a certain delay with each process. For instance, applying a filter might cause a delay of 10 samples at a sample rate of 44,100 samples per second. Typically, such delays are negligible. However, for specific applications such as granular synthesizers—where precise timing is critical—any operation (for example, applying an amplitude envelope window) must align exactly with the corresponding audio samples.
A similar principle applies in Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs), which compensate for plugin-induced latency by adding equivalent delays to other channels, thereby maintaining synchronization. This is essentially the same mechanism, but it occurs at a fundamental DSP-engine level and involves much shorter timeframes.
now, that is an excellent answer. thanks zee.
I’m the creator of Anukari — happy to answer any questions here (thought my latency may be a bit high at the moment)!
All my demos have been a bit clunky, but if you want to see a really good demo, check out what Mick Gordon made with it: https://x.com/Mick_Gordon/status/1918146487948919222
Wow, Mick Gordon’s demo was sick!
I’ve always been a big fan of physical modeling. There was Spring Sound for iOS which has a few similar qualities, springs, masses, exciters, etc.
Congrats, Evan, on getting Anukari to this stage. That seems like an insane amount of work!! Best wishes.
Thanks so much!
A hardware version with knobs, sliders, buttons and a massive touch screen would be very cool…but I figure it is not in the cards.
I want this for my Apple Vision Pro
have been looking forward to this one. for this price a no-brainer
I don’t think my personal meat-CPU is up to the job here, phew! I appreciate the rich, bell-like tone I first heard, because the X demo sounded like a glitch playground. Those two make the range of its powers clear. It feels like more of an avant-garde tool, whereas Chromaphone feels more keyboard-friendly. That said, it seems more than refined enough to justify the price. It’ll become a contender for MPE users.
Wow this looks incredible. I’m tempted to step back from going dawless because of this tool. It feels both educational, weird, and abstract but also beautiful sounding. What more can you ask for. Congrats to the developer on making such a creative tool.