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Welcome to Modalys!

With Modalys you will enjoy creating mind-blowing virtual musical instruments based on physical models!

This documentation covers the general use of the Modalys physical modeling synthesis software and has been throughly maintained. Based on the original Morrison/Waxman documentation, it has been much redesigned and rewritten over the years.

It corresponds to Modalys 3.9.0, as of August 2025.

Please visit www.forum.ircam.fr and stay tuned for IRCAM technologies, and can get some help from our Modalys Discussion Group.

Operating Sytem and Computer Requirements

Modalys works for :

  • Mac OS 10.11 and later, including Catalina and Big Sur etc., on Intel or ARM Macs with a minimum of 2 Gigs of RAM.
  • Windows 7 and later (Modalys for Max only) on Intel PCs, also with at least 2 Gigs of RAM.

Environment

Modalys is a sound synthesis framework that can be used under various environments:

  • As Modalys for Max, a Max set of objects for realtime use (formely called 'Mlys'). Compatible with Max 7 and later. In Mlys, which is a graphical environment, there is a special object called mlys.lua which opens up the world of LUA scripting.
  • As ModaLisp, a stand-alone application powered by the scripting LISP language (this is the 'historical' entry point to Modalys).
  • As an OpenMusic library (in Lisp as well).
  • As a MatLab set of objects for scientific applications.

Modalys is compiled in 64bit+ARM for Mac (Intel or ARM machines) & 64bit for Windows.

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  • Every article has (generally) 3 'flavors': Modalys for Max (Mlys), Lua, Lisp.
  • This documentation can be accessed either from the Modalys for Max maxhelp files, from the ModaLisp Help menu or directly from https://support.ircam.fr/docs/Modalys/current/

Table of Contents

This documentation is organized into the following sections:

  • Introduction - an overview and history of the program
  • Getting Started - practical information about installing Modalys
  • Objects - the basic sound-producing structures in Modalys
  • Accesses - points of communication between Modalys objects
  • Connections - physical interactions between Modalys objects
  • Controllers - managing Modalys parameters in time
  • Workspace - the Modalys working environment and its options
  • 3D Finite Elements - creating modal objects based on 3D meshes
  • Index - an alphabetical index of Modalys functions

Modalys Documentation v. 3.9.0

Originally written by Richard Dudas, it is now maintained by Robert Piéchaud. The migration from Scenari to Mkdocs was gracefully handled by Quentin Lamerand. - ©IRCAM 2025.

The Modalys software is currently developed by Robert Piéchaud at the S3AM team of Ircam.


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