Dannenberg Wind Oscillator
Spectral Interpolation Synthesis of brass & woodwinds
DESCRIPTION
EDIT: V8 increases the spectral accuracy by sampling the instruments at six notes per octave instead of three notes per octave. Also, a keyboard display indicates the instrument's range and the currently-played note.
This oscillator contains 2600 single-cycle waveforms from sixteen selected brass and woodwind instruments, captured at various pitches and amplitudes and arranged into sixteen wavetables.
Its purpose is to experiment with Spectral Interpolation Synthesis, a method of synthesizing brass and woodwind instruments as described by Prof. Roger B. Dannenberg at https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~music/sis/index.html
The instruments include:
• Trumpet, French horn, trombone, bass trombone, and tuba
• Eb clarinet, Bb clarinet, and bass clarinet
• Soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones
• Oboe, English horn, bassoon, and contrabassoon
The oscillator has only two control inputs: pitch and loudness. Loudness controls both amplitude and brightness. When loudness is zero the oscillator is silent.
The waveforms are accurate only within the playing ranges of the original instruments. A warning will appear when playing a note that is too high or too low for accurate reproduction.
Each instrument’s range can be shifted higher or lower by as much as an octave. Shifting a range higher makes an instrument shorter and shifting it lower makes it longer.
The audio clip uses the trumpet wavetable and was recorded directly from the oscillator’s output. Its pitch and loudness were driven by a breath controller, envelope generators, and LFOs.
I want to thank Efflam Le Bivic for creating these panel knobs that remind me of the ARP 2500.
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