Real church bells vibrate at inharmonic ratios set by their cast shape. Detune six oscillators off the integer grid and hear metal bloom instead of pitch.
In the world
A church bell's partials sit at irrational ratios, roughly 0.5, 1, 1.2, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3 times the hum tone; there is no single fundamental that divides them evenly.
Bells, gongs, marimbas, tubular tines, cymbals: none of them are harmonic. Their partials are inharmonic, sitting at non-integer ratios determined by the physical geometry of the vibrating body. This is why a bell's pitch feels slippery and why two bells an octave apart still sound slightly at war with each other.
Six VCOs tuned to a stretched, non-integer series can approximate a bell. Shift any ratio by a few cents and the character shifts from church bell to handbell to gamelan.
Did you know?
Bell tuning is so difficult that medieval foundries kept their recipes secret for centuries. A bell's "strike note" - the pitch you hear when it rings - does not correspond to any single partial. Your brain invents it by averaging the inharmonic mess into a phantom fundamental.
Explore
A dark forge glows on the right with a bell at center, surrounded by 6 angled rods representing the inharmonic partials. Click the bell to strike it and hear the ring. Drag any rod to change its frequency ratio - the bell's timbre shifts from church tower to gamelan to wind chime as you reshape the partial spacing.