Generating Wavetables

In the last section we covered how to load a sampled sound into an array for playback. This technique is the basis of sample-based synthesis. In this section we’ll look at a different way of loading an array with data to play back: wavetable synthesis. Again, wavetable synthesis is where a single period of a wave is stored in a table, and then played back to create a wave with certain characteristics.

The benefit to wavetable synthesis is that it is a resource-cheap method of producing waves with interesting spectral characteristics without generating them in real time. So far in this book, when generating waves we’ve only varied the frequency and amplitude. Our perception of these two attributes of sound is part of how ...

Get Programming Sound with Pure Data now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.