Filter Poles - what are they?

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I think it is.
I used to know all about this, but after not using it, I totally forgot...

Aren't X poles defined in frequency vs phase diagram?
-- Regards MrM --

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Ocean Zen wrote:And resonance?
Is that the little bump before the slope down?
Yes it is. Making filters in parametric EQ will teach you a lot about filters - except for the terminology! :P

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Ok, I get "Numbered" pole filters just fine, but what is an "all-pole
filter"?

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All-pass filter? I am not familiar otherwise with all-pole.

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Meffy wrote:When a tent has X poles, it means it will be easy to fold for carrying and storage.
You forgot to mention it would "filter out" the sun, rain and insects to varying degrees.

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shamann wrote:All-pass filter? I am not familiar otherwise with all-pole.
I seem to recall that's it's some sort of bandpass filter. I hear it referred to a lot in speech synthesis.

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A cursory web search tells me it is a filter that contains no zeros.

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so, what would the advantage be?

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The filter would be a winner! kekeke!

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Well in speech synthesis, all-pole models would be useful for many speech sounds (excluding those with stops/zeros like fricatives, nasal sounds, glottal stops, etc - p,b,n,m,g,k,etc).

The filter stuff from there would be based on DSP and transfer functions, admittedly something of which I know very little.

According to the fabulous Julius Orion Smith:

Every digital filter can be specified by its poles and zeros (plus a gain factor). Poles and zeros give useful insights into a filter's response, and can be used as the basis for digital filter design.

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I believe there are different types of filters with all poles and no zeros. A Butterworth filter is one such filter. It's advantage is maximal flatness of response curve, within the passband area. It was used a lot in crossover filters. They can be designed as either lowpass or highpass configurations. I'm not sure about other configurations, but they might also be possible. I think I remember reading about a parameteric Butterworth filter somewhere, which you would expect to give bandpass and bandreject responses.

As always, the more poles, the steeper the cutoff slope.

One thing you people aren't mentioning so far is that the attenuation doesn't keep increasing infinitely -- at least not in a hardware filter. There is eventually a maximum level of attenuation which is reached. That level will vary with filter type, and it is also possible to have ripples in the response curve above the point of maximum attentuation. Like I said, this applies to common hardware filters. I don't know if it applies to digital filters in the same way.


take care,
McLilith

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While we usually talk about filters in the context of synthesis, filters are everywhere.

In simple circuits like tube guitar amps or power supplies you see single pole RC filters everywhere. One Capacitor and one Resistor can (depending on the configuration) give a single pole high pass or a low pass filter - ie with a slope of 6 dB per octave.

The AC ripple smoothing circuit in your tube amps high voltage DC power supply is just a few single pole low pass filters in series.

In the passive crossover circuit of two way speakers you often see 2 and 3 pole high and low pass filters built from a suitable configuration of capacitors and coils.

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