We present a method for simulating reverberation in real-time using arbitrary object shapes. This method is an extension of digital plate reverberation where a dry signal is filtered through a physical model of an object vibrating in response to audio input. Using the modal synthesis method, we can simulate the vibration of many different shapes and materials in real time. Sound samples are available at the follwing website: http://cynthia.code404.com/dafx-audio/.

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For interactive sound synthesis, we would like to change the shape of a finite element model of an instrument and rapidly hear how the sound changes. Using modal synthesis methods, we would need to compute a new modal decomposition with each change in the geometry, making the analysis too slow for interactive use. However, by using modes computed for one geometry to estimate the frequencies for nearby geometries, we can hear much more quickly how changing the instrument shape changes the sound. In this paper, we describe how to estimate resonant frequencies of an instrument by combining information about the modes of two similar instruments. We also describe the balance between computational speed and accuracy of the computed resonances.

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