The method of noninteger frequency division may be applied to the synthesis of the musical scale, with consequent advantages of accurate pitch and good spectral properties. A set of noninteger dividers has been constructed from ripple-carry counters and exclusive-OR gates, which generate from a 1-MHz, source the semitones in the octave 4434-8372 Hz with a worst error in relative pitch of 0.4 cent. Lower octaves are obtained by further binary divisions, and digital circuitry for key shifting and vibrato is incorporated.

Author: Small, Greig W.
Affiliation: CSIRO Division of Applied Physics, National Standards Laboratory, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia
JAES Volume 21 Issue 4 pp. 262-266; May 1973
Publication Date: May 1, 1973 Import into BibTeX
Permalink: https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=1981

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