Eigendrum
Draw any shape and hear what it sounds like as a drum
Details
- External ID
- 49246366
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- Eigendrum
- Website domain
- github.io
- Launched
- Aug. 10, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 243
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.9811827956989247
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 10, 2026, 5:32 a.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 10, 2026, 5:32 a.m.
Description
Hi HN, I built Eigendrum, a web tool that solves the 2D wave equation for arbitrary shapes so you can hear what they sound like as drums.How it works: * Solves -∇²u = λu using finite element analysis (Kφ = λMφ) on a triangle mesh. * Validated to <0.1% error against closed-form solutions for circles (Bessel zeros) and rectangles. * Sound model factors in strike location, Rayleigh damping, and mallet width. * Includes Kac drums I & II to demonstrate identical sound spectra from different geometries. * No frameworks, build steps, or dependencies.Repo and tests: https://github.com/BaselAshraf81/eigendrumHappy to answer any questions about the FEM solver or Web Audio setup!https://eigendrum.com/#p=circle
Enrichment
- Theme
- music creation and learning tools
- Vertical
- Media & entertainment
- Function
- Content generation
- Audience
- B2C
- AI stance
- Not AI
- Project type
- Commercial product
- Normalized one-liner
- convert drawn shapes into drum sounds
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
Partial The web UI and audio playback are straightforward, but solving the 2D Helmholtz/wave equation on arbitrary drawn polygonal meshes via finite element analysis and modal synthesis requires non-trivial computational physics knowledge.
What it would actually take: Requires implementing 2D constrained Delaunay triangulation (e.g., Triangle or earcut), assembling sparse stiffness (K) and mass (M) matrices for linear triangular elements, and solving the generalized sparse eigenvalue problem directly in the browser using WebAssembly. The resulting eigenmodes are then mapped to resonant audio frequencies synthesized in real-time via Web Audio API oscillators.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Airbnb, Speaker design software
Concerns raised: Doesn't work on mobile phones (iPhone 14), SSL/TLS cipher mismatch errors across browsers, Website offline issues, Ads and consent banner problems
Feature requests: Mobile phone support
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 125 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #2 of 126 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 285 days after the earliest competitor.
- DrumToScore · ph · 2026-09-20 · 2 upvotes · similarity 0.47
- HertzKit · ph · 2026-09-29 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.46
- Drum machine VST made with React/C++ · hn · 2026-01-27 · 14 upvotes · similarity 0.46
- Airdrum · ph · 2026-09-24 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- Web Audio Studio · hn · 2026-03-02 · 64 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- Resonate · hn · 2026-06-06 · 46 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- Beats, a web-based drum machine · hn · 2026-01-18 · 160 upvotes · similarity 0.43
- Drum Lab · ph · 2026-09-30 · 2 upvotes · similarity 0.42
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.
Same idea, different domain
Nobody's really built a content generation tool for Government yet.