- Wavetable synthesis
Wavetable synthesis is a technique used in certain digital music
synthesizer s to implement real-timeadditive synthesis anddirect digital synthesis with a minimum of hardware. The technique was first developed byWolfgang Palm in the late 1970s, and has since been used in othersynthesizer s built byYamaha ,Korg andWaldorf Music .Theory of operation
To begin the process, the sound of an existing instrument (a single note) is sampled and processed using a
spectrum analyzer , producing a graph ofovertone s contained in the sample. This graph is then parsed into a sequence of samples or wavetables, each having one period or cycle per table, generated by adding together the partials at each parse point. A set of wavetables with user specifiedharmonic content can also be generated mathematically. These wavetables are typically arranged one after the other in arandom-access memory , allowing for easy access and nearly instant start-point changes; when the data is played back, a phase accumulator looping at a set rate (determined by thesample rate and the frequency of the note desired) feeds the samples to adigital-to-analog converter , creating a continuous waveform at the given frequency.During playback, the waveform produced can be changed by switching to a different starting point in memory, usually on command from an
envelope generator orlow frequency oscillator . Doing this modifies the spectral characteristics of the output wave in real time, producing sounds that can imitate certain analog instruments (such as organs,piano s,harpsichord s andreed instruments) acceptably without requiring the use of apulse code modulation technique, which requires much more memory and higher sample rates for good results. The technique is also useful for evolving pads, where the waveform changes slowly over time and can reverse itself or loop back to an arbitrary point.Since a wavetable oscillator can generate arbitrary waveforms, it is also possible to load simple
sine wave ,square wave andsawtooth wave tables and use the synthesizer like ananalog synthesizer , usingsubtractive synthesis to modify the sound. Also, some wavetable synthesizers (such as the PPG Wave 2.3 with Waveterm) can reset the loop point on the phase accumulator to a period longer than a single cycle, making a PCM mode possible with minimal hardware changes.Comparison with other digital synthesis techniques
Wavetable synthesis has similar capabilities to other synthesizers in the real-time additive synthesis family, as well as to digital
frequency modulation synthesis systems such as theYamaha DX and OPx series; however, wavetable synthesizers require less hardware to produce a usable system. The entire oscillator can be implemented using a few7400 series TTL ICs and small-capacitystatic RAM ICs, something that was important in the late 1970s and early 1980s (when memory prices were still relatively high, and high-powered CPUs such as theMotorola 68000 were uncommon and expensive); most other digital synthesizers of the time either implemented each partial separately, making assembly more complex (this is also how mostelectronic organ s are built), or used custom ICs to bring the chip count down.Later wavetable synthesizers have antialiasing capabilities (where the transitions between waves are mediated by the CPU instead of simply switching the starting address of the loop) as well as subtractive-style filters (since the moving filter effect that a wavetable patch provides is somewhat "harsh" and FM-like without antialiasing, and filters were easier to implement at the time).
Confusion with
sample-based synthesis Starting around
1993 , with the introduction ofCreative Labs 'Sound Blaster AWE32 andGravis 's Ultrasound cards, the term "wavetable" started to be applied to anysound card that had a betterGeneral MIDI subsystem than the then-common OPL2 and OPL3 FM synthesizers. This was based on a misunderstanding between the technical definition of a wavetable (which is the actual sample data used to generate an arbitrary wave), and PPG's usage of the term (which referred specifically to their implementation of additive synthesis, as described above). The AWE32 was not an additive synthesizer, but a high-end sampler and subtractive synthesis system based on technology from theE-mu Emulator family.The description of wavetable synthesis in previous sections is the most original definition of the term and (as shown in the reference below) wavetable synthesis is equivalent to
additive synthesis in the case that allpartial s orovertone s areharmonic (that is all overtones are at frequencies that are an integer multiple of afundamental frequency of the tone).External links
* [http://www.musicdsp.org/files/Wavetable-101.pdf Wavetable Synthesis 101, A Fundamental Perspective]
* [http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/techniques/v0.03/book-html/node22.html Wavetables and samplers]
* [http://www.mcrow.net/Orpheus.htm Orpheus and the New Sample-Loop Synthesis method]
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