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Discrete Summation Synthesis of Musical Instrument Tones Using Genetic Algorithms

An automated genetic algorithm method is introduced, which determines discrete summation synthesis parameters for matching an arbitrary harmonic instrument tone. Previous work in discrete summation synthesis has mainly been limited to theoretical discussion on the use of discrete summation formulas, with the parameters left to the user to pick by hand. Results are given using the authors' technique to match the dynamic spectra of the trombone, English horn, and Chinese pipa. Finally, the matching results of the discrete summation synthesis are compared with those found by wavetable matching, and guidelines are proposed for when to use discrete summation synthesis instead of other synthesis techniques.

Authors: Chan, San-kuen; Horner, Andrew
Affiliation: Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong
JAES Volume 44 Issue 7/8 pp. 581-592; July 1996 Import into BibTeX

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