Am I confused about wavetable

[fateamenabletochange]

Pass the sugar please

One lump or two

[whyterabbyt]

Camel Audio subliminal advertising.

[himalaya]

Stop yelling and RTFM.

http://seib.synth.net/documents/w22omeng.pdf

Nuff said.




PS: Ap0C552, it's academic at this point (literally) but I hope this helps.

Stop yelling and RTFM.

http://www.musicdsp.org/files/Wavetable-101.pdf

Nuff said.

ftfy.

And both of those state that wavetable synthesis involves mowing through the waves/wavetables! So much for 'semantics' and trying to ridicule, but I suppose some will never see it.

[whyterabbyt]

And both of those state that wavetable synthesis involves mowing through the waves/wavetables!

yes, except the latter explicitly states that the wavetable is single-cycle.

Wavetable music synthesis (not to be confused with common PCM sample buffer playback) is
similar to simple digital sine wave generation [1] [2] but extended at least two ways. First, the
waveform lookup table contains samples for not just a single period of a sine function but for
a single period of a more general waveshape.

So much for 'semantics' and trying to ridicule, but I suppose some will never see it.

ironic. i suppose you never saw the first paragraph, then.

[hakey]

I am trying out Rhincodon typus. I read that it was a whale shark, and this is why I want to try it out.

But it seems to me like it is nothing more than a very large fish with neither a blow hole nor rows of sharp, backwards pointing teeth.

I was under the impression that commonly used terms always give an accurate, objective and unambiguous description of that to which they refer. Am I missing something here?

[Albert.VST]

sorry to bring an end to your 30-year lasting joy, but what is it called when you put a square followed by a saw followed by a triangle followed by a pulse of noise? is that a wave, or a wave-table? (proper name: a waveform)

Again, I would say, a song (but a very short one).

Semantics and (music)synthesis don't seem to match well, I'm sure you can find a lot of examples from both old hardware to new software.

I would say that in 1982 a company named PPG for the first time made a form of music synthesis generally available to the public that used "nearly twothousand different waveforms in 30 wavetables (each has 64 waveforms)" with the possibility to "run through up to 64 waveforms within the length of one played note". From that point in time this type of music synthesis is commonly known to a part of the world population, namely users of electronic music synthesizers (semantically correct description of this small part of the world population?), as wavetable synthesis.
Just like a few years later a company called Yamaha released another form of music synthesis to the public commonly known in this same part of world population as FM synthesis (although technically and semantically it isn't).

So every company releasing products for this specific group of users in a later stage could, and I think should, be aware of this legacy and to avoid confusion describe their product, although semantically maybe not necessary, with respect to these commonly understood conventions in this group of users. Although these conventions may be wrong in some aspects.

[jens]

It's only similar in the sense that SOMETHING is getting modulated with SOMETHING. The methods of modulation are completely different between those syntheses.

What I meant is that theoretically you can get similar transitions between various waveforms with any of them.... so while the synthesis-techniques are totally different, the results are not neccessarily.

I now had the time to prepare two quick examples in order to illustrate what I mean:



http://www.prinziphoffnung.com/mp3/SineToSaw1.mp3

http://www.prinziphoffnung.com/mp3/SineToSaw1.mp3


One of these files uses wavetable-synthesis (or whatever you want to call it) to morph from a sinewave to a sawwave, the other one FM (PM) - and albeit I guess it won't be too hard to figure out which is which, you'll surely admit that both synthesizers do something similar here.

[whyterabbyt]

sorry to bring an end to your 30-year lasting joy, but what is it called when you put a square followed by a saw followed by a triangle followed by a pulse of noise? is that a wave, or a wave-table? (proper name: a waveform)

Again, I would say, a song (but a very short one).

Semantics and (music)synthesis don't seem to match well, I'm sure you can find a lot of examples from both old hardware to new software.

I would say that in 1982 a company named PPG for the first time made a form of music synthesis generally available to the public that used "nearly twothousand different waveforms in 30 wavetables (each has 64 waveforms)" with the possibility to "run through up to 64 waveforms within the length of one played note". From that point in time this type of music synthesis is commonly known to a part of the world population, namely users of electronic music synthesizers (semantically correct description of this small part of the world population?), as wavetable synthesis.
Just like a few years later a company called Yamaha released another form of music synthesis to the public commonly known in this same part of world population as FM synthesis (although technically and semantically it isn't).

So every company releasing products for this specific group of users in a later stage could, and I think should, be aware of this legacy and to avoid confusion describe their product, although semantically maybe not necessary, with respect to these commonly understood conventions in this group of users. Although these conventions may be wrong in some aspects.

which is a bit like saying 'most people think the Internet is the same thing as the World Wide Web, so Internet Service Providers and other such companies should call themselves something different so as not to confuse people by using accurate terminology'

[Shabdahbriah]

Camel Audio subliminal advertising.

[Albert.VST]

which is a bit like saying 'most people think the Internet is the same thing as the World Wide Web, so Internet Service Providers and other such companies should call themselves something different so as not to confuse people by using accurate terminology'

Yeah, basically you're right. But again this is the semantic trouble when one company starts with giving something a name which technically is wrong, but due to some circumstances like popularity, it becomes more of a standard to descibe something in general. It's proven very hard to correct this. And also people's expectations become build on the common use of such a description, even if uncorrect. Not on what the true meaning of such a description is.

And we here are not better than the rest of the world, so to us old synth geeks Wavetable systhesis is inextricably connected with the synthesis method introduced by PPG in 1982.

[hakey]

which is a bit like saying 'most people think the Internet is the same thing as the World Wide Web, so Internet Service Providers and other such companies should call themselves something different so as not to confuse people by using accurate terminology'

Hmm... I don't think he was arguing that anything should be changed, rather that where a term gains currency there's not much point in arguing that it is ambiguous, technically incorrect, illogical, historically inaccurate or plain contradictory - the definition of a term is derived from its common usage.

[whyterabbyt]

the definition of a term is derived from its common usage.

in common useage yes. however 'common useage' definitions don't actually negate technical definitions.

in this case, we have proponents of the 'common useage' insisting that useage of the technical definition is incorrect. furthermore, its not enough to insist that one's own useage should prevail; the confusion already exists.

if the common useage term for X overlaps with the technical definition for Y, then you need to do one of two things to remove the confusion you create; find a better common useage term for X, or find a common usage term for Y. insisting that Y should be called X, and ignoring the fact that one still needs to refer to X somehow is not helping that confusion.

[hakey]

if the common useage term for X overlaps with the technical definition for Y, then you need to do one of two things to remove the confusion you create; find a better common useage term for X, or find a common usage term for Y.

Which would entail persuading all those presently using the ambiguous term/s to agree upon and adopt a new usage. Unfortunately, except in special cases (eg taxonomy), that's not how the English language develops.

And we here are not better than the rest of the world, so to us old synth geeks Wavetable systhesis is inextricably connected with the synthesis method introduced by PPG in 1982.

+1

[whyterabbyt]

Which would entail persuading all those presently using the ambiguous term/s to agree upon and adopt a new usage.

yes, if they want to prevent the confusion they're complaining about.
in plenty of previous threads here on this topic (almost all of them featuring some the same 'complainees' as in this, funnily enough) its been pointed out, by other equally-old synth geeks, that terms like 'PPG-style wavetables' or 'scanned wavetables' are equally-well- understood, and used, and less ambiguous. no new useage is actually needed, we have viable, equally-longstanding, alternate old useages.

either that or they can just stop complaining when the technical definition of the term gets used correctly.

[ENV1]

The problem goes much deeper.

It starts with the fact that there is no such thing as a square wave.

(Much like there is no such thing as a linear curve, thats an oxymoron.)



IMO the whole terminology is flawed. Over the past 50 years many terms have become standard even though it doesnt really make sense. (Or at least not as much as it could make with different terms.) And now it is too late to do something about it anymore. For instance:

A Saw is called Saw, but there are 2 possible directions. Since both directions have the shape of a ramp, the forms should have been called 'Ramp Up' (RU) and 'Ramp Down' (RD) exclusively so that noone could ever confuse them.

A Triangle is called Triangle, even though the actual form doesnt have 3 angles. This is the one that should have been called Saw, although for the sake of consistency 'Ramp Up & Down' (RUD) and/or 'Ramp Down & Up' (RDU) would have been even better.

A Square is called Square, but what it really describes is a series of equal-length linear pulses. The proper term for Square therefore would have been 'Symmetric Linear Pulse' (SLP).

PWM, given the fact that the 'P' is already for 'Pulse', leaves no room for complaints. However, PWM merely describes the modulation-type, not the resulting form. Hence, in order to follow the naming convention, forms derived from modulating the width of a linear pulse should have been called 'Asymmetric Linear Pulse' (ALP).

Non-Linear Pulses (as in pulses with curved flanks) are just that and should have been called just that as well. (NLP)

Trapeze doesnt seem all wrong, although for consistency sake it could have been called 'Ramp-Pulse' (RP) and/or 'Pulse-Ramp' (PR) as well.

In fact the only basic form that had the proper name right from the beginning seems to be good old Sine...