A digital system and method of operation is provided in which musical notes and melodies are synthesized. The operation done for music synthesis is based on time domain processing of prerecorded waveforms, referred to as analysis waveforms. The computations are done using time-marks, which is a set of digital sample positions of the analysis waveform (400) indicating the starting position of each period of the fundamental frequency or an arbitrary position for non-periodic analysis waveforms. The algorithm defines on a time scale the time-marks of the synthesis waveform (410). The synthesis is based on making a relation between the analysis time-marks and the synthesis time-marks. The synthesis waveforms (410) are built with the extraction of small portions of signal located at corresponding time-mark positions of the analysis waveform and adding them to the corresponding synthesis time-marks on the synthesis time-scale. This extraction is done with the multiplication of a windowing pattern, such as a cosinous Hanning window (420-422), to the analysis samples.

A digital synthesizer includes an input transducer (101) for accepting input signals from a musician representing at least the desired fundamental pitch and timbre. The synthesizer has timbre storing circuitry for storing data representing a plu­rality of selectable timbres, including relative pitch data for a plurality of sets of partials and a plurality of sets of amplitude data, the partials and the amplitudes being inde­pendently selectable. Waveform determining circuitry deter­mines sequential values of the musical waveform in real time from the timbre data, from the timbre selected by the musi­cian, and from the pitch selected by the musician. The wave­form determining circuitry includes a first adder (201) for additively determining the phase of each partial of the se­lected timbre and is responsive to the relative partial pitch data to determine that phase. It also includes a se­cond adder (204) for summing the magnitudes of all the par­tials for the selected timbre at each predetermined time interval to generate the magnitude of the musical waveform at that instant.

Ein Verfahren zur synthetischen Erzeugung eines digitalen Audiosignals durch periodische Abtastung einer Wellenform soll dem Nutzer einen besonders einfach gehaltenen und intuitiven Zugang zur Veränderung und kreativen Umgestaltung der der Abtastung zugrunde gelegten Wellenform ermöglichen. Dazu wird erfindungsgemäß die Wellenform aus einer Anzahl von zeitlich aufeinanderfolgenden, jeweils durch eine segmentspezifische Linearkombination aus einer Anzahl von Basisfunktionen definierten Wellensegmenten (32) zusammengesetzt, wobei die Linearkoeffizienten für jedes Wellensegment (32) derart gewählt werden, dass das jeweilige Wellensegment (32) an seinen Segmenträndern (34) jeweils vorgebbare, veränderbare Amplitudenrandwerte aufweist.

Es wird ein Verfahren zur Klangerzeugung mit einem elektronischen Musikinstrument und ein elektronisches Musikinstrument angegeben, bei dem in einem Vorbereitungsabschnitt Klangmuster in einer Speichereinrichtung (7) in Form von Abtastwerten digital gespeichert werden und in einem Klangerzeugungsabschnitt die Abtastwerte aus der Speichereinrichtung (7) ausgelesen werden, in einem Interpolationsfilter digital interpoliert werden und digital-analog gewandelt werden, wobei bei der digitalen Interpolation eine Dämpfung unterhalb der Sperrfrequenz des Interpolationsfilters zugelassen wird und im Vorbereitungsabschnitt die früher frequenten Anteile der Klangmuster, die im Interpolationsfilter gedämpft werden, vor der Speicherung verstärkt werden.

A tone generation system intended primarily for use in electronic musical instruments wherein a digital representation of a harmonically rich waveform is sampled, and a musical tone is produced therefrom. The stored waveform could be the four-term Blackman-Harris window function, which has negligible sidelobes and thus greatly attenuated higher harmonics. The stored function is read out at a fixed rate, but the time periods between successive readings of the waveform are varied to thereby vary the frequency of the output signal. Harmonic content is varied by adjusting the amplitudes of successive waveforms in the waveform train, which has the resultant effect of producing harmonics of selectable amplitudes.