Wavetable synthesis: Difference between revisions

'''Wavetable synthesis''' is used in some digital [[synthesizer]]s to implement a restricted form of real-time [[additive synthesis]]. The technique was first developed by [[Wolfgang Palm]] of [[Palm Products GmbH|PPG]] in the late 1970s <ref>[http://seib.synth.net/documents/w22omeng.pdf PPG Wave 2.2 owners manual]</ref><ref>[http://wolfgangpalm.com/ppg_blogs/c4/ Part 4 "Digital Age"] on Wolfgang Palm's blog</ref> and published in 1979,<ref name="Andresen">''A New Way in Sound Synthesis'' by Uwe Andresen, Audio Engineering Society (AES), 62nd AES Convention (Brussels, Belgium), 1979</ref> and has since been used as the primary synthesis method in synthesizers built by PPG and [[Waldorf Music]] and as an auxiliary synthesis method by [[Sequential Circuits]], [[Ensoniq]], [[Korg]], [[Access Music]], [[Dave Smith Instruments]] and others.

Wavetable synthesis is periodic reproduction of a single-cycle [[waveform]].<ref>''[http://www.musicdsp.org/files/Wavetable-101.pdf Wavetable Synthesis 101, A Fundamental Perspective]'' by Robert Bristow-Johnson, Audio Engineering Society (AES), 101st AES Convention (Los Angeles, California), 1996</ref> The distinction from other synthesis methods employing single-cycle waveforms is that multiple single-cycle waveforms are used (originally as a table of 64 waveforms with 128 samples each<ref name="Andresen"/>) and some means of [[amplitude modulation]] and mixing the single-cycle waveforms is employed.