Plonk uses a technique known as physical modeling to synthesize, with great realism, the way in which sound is produced by acoustic instruments. The Plonk module is, itself, focused primarily on creating percussive sounds both pitched and un-pitched, natural and unnatural, acoustic-sounding or totally electronic.
It does this by breaking sound creation into two distinct elements the exciter and the resonator. The exciter is a mathematical model of the device used to strike a particular surface. Plonk, because it’s percussion oriented, has two types of exciters: one modeled on a mallet, and the other providing a noise source. The resonator is a virtualization of the object being struck, which vibrates, resonates and creates the body of a sound. Plonk offers several types of resonators: beam, marimba, drumhead, membrane, plate, and string.

Plonk provides numerous parameters that let you shape, mold and design both the exciter and the resonator, thus enabling you to synthesize the sound of striking or scraping almost any type of object real or imagined. In this way, Plonk can accurately model the sounds of kicks, snares, toms, cymbals, claps, tablas, congas and all manner of traditional percussion instruments. It can also model pitched percussive instruments, like vibes, marimbas, and even bass or guitar-like tones. Of course, it additionally excels at modeling instruments that never existed.

New firmware v1.15 release as of Jan’19 features Saturation, Bitcrusher and Expanded output gain, all of which can be assigned to the X, Y & MOD controls.

Features
• Resonator section models strings, beams, marimbas, drumheads, membranes, and plates with additional synthesis methods (including non-modal) planned for the future
• Exciter section comprises a realistic mallet model and flexible noise source
• Two Voice Polyphonic at full resolution (16-bit 44.1khz)
• Pseudo multi-timbrality via CV selectable presets recalled on each new trigger/gate
• Full parameter randomization possible
• All synthesis parameters can be assigned to the X and Y controls
• 128 presets that can be imported and exported via USB

In the Box
• The module itself
• Eurorack Power Cable