Strike a meditation gong
One deep gong with adjustable strike force and a thirty-second decay.
Meditation Gong
One deep gong with adjustable strike force and a thirty-second decay.
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Strike force changes brightness, not just volume — a harder strike excites the higher modes, which is how a real gong behaves.
Generated live with the Web Audio API — no audio files, nothing downloaded. Headphones are worth using; laptop speakers lose the low end entirely.
A gong is far denser than a bowl — ten closely spaced inharmonic modes rather than five or six, plus a noise bed that blooms a moment after the strike rather than at it. That bloom is why a gong seems to grow louder after you hit it, and it is modelled here.
Strike force changes brightness, not only volume. A hard strike excites the upper modes and opens the filter, so it is genuinely brighter as well as louder; a soft strike is dark and round. That is how a real gong behaves and it is the main reason a single sample never sounds convincing.
Most people use a gong to open and close a sit rather than during it. One soft strike to begin, one to end, and the thirty-second decay gives you a natural boundary at each end without needing a timer.
What this needs next
Gongs are the one instrument here where size changes the sound completely — anything under about 20 inches will not produce the low bloom. A stand and a proper padded mallet matter as much as the gong itself.
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