Modelling musical instruments in the digital domain

Digital hardware may be used to generate waveforms as well as to process already-existing waveforms. Several digital synthesis techniques are in use today, most of whose advantages lie in their computational efficiency rather than their utility. Only the methods of synthesis known as additive and subtractive, however, are accompanied by a suitable analysis technique, allowing the accurate extraction of parameters from real waveforms for subsequent use in synthesis. With the advent of VLSI, these techniques are becoming economically attractive for analysis and synthesis of sound. An approach to musical signal processing, based on additive synthesis, is presented.