The 32 shared envelope shapes

Every partial of every recorded note (63 notes, 924 partials) follows one of these 32 loudness curves. A partial stores only its own level, pan, tail decay and a 5-bit shape number. The curves were found by energy-weighted k-means over all 924 fitted envelopes, so loud partials shaped them most.

• Curve: loudness over the first 4 s, time on a log axis (5 ms … 4 s), 0 to -60 dB.
• Under each curve: how many partials use it and their share of all partial energy.
• Tap a shape to light up its partials in the map below. Tap it again to show all.

Which partial uses which shape

Rows: notes, low to high, in three blocks pp / mf / ff. Columns: partial 1, 2, 3 … Color: shape number. Brightness: the partial's level. Tap a cell for details.