Mic Excitation

The standalone and web apps can take audio from your input device — your laptop's built-in mic, a USB interface, or anything the OS exposes as an input — and feed it into each instrument's physical model the same way the audio-effect plugins do. Tap on the table, hum into the mic, snap your fingers, and the resonator wakes up around you.

Turning it on

Each instrument has its own mic toggle in the toolbar above the play surface. The icon is a small microphone:

  • Tap mic on the Handpan to drive the handpan tone fields with input.
  • Tap mic on the Gong to drive the gong plate.
  • Tap mic on the Sound Bowl to drive the bowl rim.

Each instrument is independent — you can route the mic into the gong only, or into all three at once.

The toggle is hidden if the platform has no audio input available (for example, the iOS app running as an AUv3 plugin uses the host's audio chain instead, so its mic toggle isn't shown).

Permissions

  • Web app — the first time you tap a mic toggle the browser will ask for microphone permission. Permission is per-site; you can revoke it later from your browser's site settings.
  • Standalone macOS / Windows / Linux — the OS may prompt the first time the app opens an input stream. After that it'll remember the grant.

If you don't see a mic toggle but expect one, check that an input device is selected under Audio settings — Orbiter shows the toggle only when at least one input device is available.

Choosing the input device

The input device picker lives in Settings → Audio → Input. The dropdown lists every input device the OS exposes; the System Default option follows your OS-level default and changes if you plug in a new mic.

The web app uses whatever the browser's getUserMedia returns — typically the OS default. Some browsers let you pick a specific input from their address-bar microphone permissions popover.

What the resonator hears

The audio model is a real-time resonator, not a recorder, so the shape of your input matters more than its level:

  • Transients — claps, taps, plucks — wake up a wide range of modes briefly. Great for tonal hits and ambient blooms.
  • Sustained sound — a held vowel, a bowed string, a pad — keeps energy flowing into the model and tends to draw out longer evolving sustains, especially on the singing bowl (which has a friction "rub" mode that engages on continuous input).
  • Silence — produces silence. The resonator only sounds while there's input to excite it (or notes you play yourself).

You can play notes on the instrument while the mic is on; they layer into the same resonator alongside the audio input.

Tips

  • If the resonator sounds too aggressive or harsh, lower the input level at the OS / browser level rather than reaching for the instrument's own knobs.
  • The bowl's Sympathetic parameter rewards mic input — input on one bowl wakes the others through sympathetic coupling.
  • If you don't hear anything, double-check the OS-level mic level (not muted, not at zero) and that the browser hasn't denied permission.