AM/FM and More Timbral Theories
Wessel, Grey, McAdams, Bregman
This was one of those multi-faceted classes. We started by
following-up on our previous discussion of AM synthesis (especially
as applied to input signals) and doing a quick review/overview
of FM synthesis.
From there we hopped back into the realm of perceptual/pschoacoustical
theories of timbre, concentrating specifically on the multi-dimensional
scaling (MDS) approaches of researchs like David Wessel, John Grey and
Stephen McAdams. Connections between the techniques avaliable
to us, the theories developed, all that.
Bryan finished the class with a good exposition of the work done
by Albert Bregman (auditory scene analysis). Although Bregman's
work isn't specifically about timbre, his holistic approach
certainly encompasses the aspects of auditory perception central
to how timbre probably operates.
Links
AM and FM synthesis:
There are many, many articles on AM and FM synthesis, as both are
well-established techniques for making synthetic sound. Some of
the links on our
resources
page are still valid, but if you simply google "FM synthesis
tutorial" or "AM synthesis" you will find a lot of information.
Here are a couple of 'local' links:
- older class link
-- some recent links here with good tutorials and theoretical
info about AM and FM
- older older class link
-- older links to AM/FM articles (including one discussing the difference
between phase modulation and frequency modulation) as well as
some old class patches
more timbral perceptual work:
Here are a few of the original papers dealing with MDS and "timbre
space":
auditory scene analysis:
Class Downloads