Making an(y) unique instrumental sound by playing around harmonics

When an instrument is played, it does not just produce the frequency is played (the fundamental) but also the sequence of frequencies as the series of integers multiple of a fundamental. Each instrument differs from the other mainly in the volume of the individual harmonics. If I can manually fine-tune the volume of every single harmonic, in theory, I can mimic every single instrument or create any new timbre.

This pure data patch I made l randomly generates different ratios of harmonics, thus, randomly creating timbre. However, the harmonic series is infinite, in this patch, only eight have been generated.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Post-spectralism influence on tuning

Haba's field shifting - and the expansion of traditional functional harmony

Temperament, Tuning, and Timbre -- the underrated trinity in music