Physics meets music with Anukari

Ex-Googler's physics plugin turns springs and masses into sound

Anukari is a synthesizer that makes sound by simulating physics instead of playing samples. You assemble masses and springs into a contraption in a 3D editor, add energy, and the vibration becomes audio, so construction and microphone placement define the tone. Evan Mezeske built a prototype as a weekend project, set it aside for ten years, and returned to it after eleven years at Google working on fraud and abuse left him burned out.

Takeaways

• Anukari synthesizes sound by simulating physics. Evan Mezeske's plugin lets you assemble abstract masses and springs into a contraption, introduce energy, and turn the vibration into sound. The 3D view shows the physics simulation one to one rather than decorating an engine underneath, and nothing is sampled.
• Construction and microphone placement shape the tone. A stretched mesh of masses and springs sounds like a drum head, and moving the microphones changes the timbre. Parameters such as mesh stretching can be driven over MIDI. Modulators run at audio rate up to 20 kilohertz, and contraption presets use small piston objects as LFOs.
• Composers already use it for cinematic sound. Mick Gordon, who scored the last two Doom games, built a dubstep track from Anukari presets on the second day of the beta. The plugin has been used for sound effects, including on Star Trek, and Mezeske says cinematic sounds are one of its strengths.
• No samples, so the plugin stays small. CPU use depends heavily on the preset, and the GPU only drives the lightweight 3D graphics. One gigabyte of disk space covers the whole plugin because it synthesizes sound instead of loading samples. Mezeske bought old Windows laptops for $111 each on eBay to reproduce reported bugs.
• One purchase, no subscription, no iLok. Anukari sells for €99 as a one-off with only basic anti-piracy protection, which Mezeske guesses would take about ten minutes to crack. He avoids iLok-style authentication because he finds it immensely irritating, unlike the dozens of authentication apps host Chris Chinchilla has installed.
• Plugin format fragmentation persists and Mezeske blames Steinberg. Audio plugins ship as Mac and Windows standalone builds plus several competing formats, and CLAP support is coming to Anukari. Mezeske blames Steinberg, the maker of VST, for the lack of a single standard. Bitwig is the only commercial DAW on Linux, and he also rates Reaper.

What comes next for Anukari

• Linux support has taken most of Mezeske's effort over recent weeks.
• New physics parameters for body objects are in development.
• A planned modulo sphere is a resizable, movable sphere that changes a parameter such as mass for anything inside it.