The list of every type of sound all instruments can make?
Sorry if this question is a bit low level into the programming, but I am wondering how to build a synthesizer of realistic sounds (without using samples). In the beginning, just basic instruments (guitar, drums, bass with effects), then to voice and nature sounds like lightning, fire, crickets, flowing water, etc.
The way I see it, I would start with the low level oscillators (which I know very little about yet, but this question is the start to a journey of learning audio by doing, I just need some higher level motivation), and add effects to them. But then the second step is to define all types of sounds instruments can make.
I don't really know what that means, but this is where I'm at... There is a pound sound like the drum, there is a sustained but lessening sound like the sound of a plucked string instrument. There is the sustained sound of a note in a flute. Then second to this "category" of waves (it seems to call them waves in this category), there is the transition between notes in an instrument, like sliding on a violin, vs. striking a single note.
So I guess it boils down to waves and wave transitions then. Is there a list of all types of sound waves somewhere? Something like that? I know I've seen the 4-ish standard waves of an oscillator (sine wave, triangle, etc.). But what about realistic sounds? How many types of waves are there? Can they be categorized?
If I knew how many types of waves there were and categories, then I would have a foundation upon which I could build all other sounds. I could start by defining lets say "The 100 Basic Sound Waves", and then I could play them at different intensities with different notes with different effects and durations.
Has anyone done this sort of work already in collecting the wave types to make arbitrary sound from a reasonably large alphabet of symbols?
Note: I was wondering if I should ask on Sound Design Stack Exchange, but I realize I like the idea of associating this more closely with music theory and real instruments (because I used to play in a band). Asking here you might know the higher-level building blocks on top of your standard low-level audio API, so could point me in a better/faster direction.
In terms of "all instruments", I mean every abstract "instrument", from a guitar, to a voice, to a hammer, to a keyboard typing to a flame to water to any thing that can be used to make sound. What are the categories of sound types that can be made?
Sort of like asking "what are all the shapes of 3D objects", and it boils down to shapes with certain number of sides with concave and convex. Something simple and elegant. But you can get more complicated and deep with it if you want, it evolves out of some basics.
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You are asking about the Fourier Transform. It translates functions into a series of sine waves. I recommend you learn a bit about calculus before delving in though. If you are programing you'll be interested in MATLAB's DFT and FFT: www.mathworks.com/help/signal/ug/discrete-fourier-transform.html Waves such as square waves can be constructed using sine waves: www.khanacademy.org/science/electrical-engineering/ee-signals/ee-fourier-series/v/ee-fourier-coefficients-for-square-wave https://www.khanacademy.org/science/electrical-engineering/ee-signals/ee-fourier-series/v/ee-visualize-fourier-series-square-wave
Visualization of this:
You may get varied results depending on which instruments you use because some instruments produce sounds which are almost entirely the overtone series. For example, you would probably need more waves to "render" a bassoon, which is almost all overtones, than a trumpet.
Interesting question, and probably one that has concerned anyone who has tried to write a physical modelling or additive synthesizer - one that is 'in theory capable of every sound' - because of course, 'everything' is hard to work with. How do you categorise, parameterise, and control the sounds if your starting point is "everything"?
I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I don't think there is yet a widely-adopted method of categorizing all types of sounds to the level of detail that allows you to think about recreating them realistically (I'd love to be proved wrong!). I can think of things that have dealt with a small subdomain of sounds - for example, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet that deals with spoken sounds.
Some things you could take inspiration from -
Organology, and particular classifications such as Hornbostel–Sachs
As suggested in the comments, you could look at particular physical models used by physical modelling synths - 'plucked string', 'blown tube', and so on. Of course there's no one way of categorizing these either - some PM approaches might see 'string' and 'plate' as different models, but you could see them as variations on the same theme too.
SAOL, which attempted a somewhat general model of how sound could be made
You could also attempt to classify spectra, rather than focus on the way in which sound is produced - e.g. you could consider sounds with even harmonics only, sounds with odd harmonics only, sounds with all harmonics (in different proportions)... and then go on to consider sounds that don't follow the harmonic series, such as noise spectra and so on.
Googling 'Audio classification' currently brings up various AI-based approaches. If you have any interest in AI, you could see if you could find an AI-based approach that created classifications that were useful for synthesis.
In a universe where people knew a lot more about sound and synthesis than they do now, you could imagine a scenario where there was a general, abstract way of describing sounds, and then that could be input into any type of synthesizer, each of which could attempt to reproduce that sound as best it could. Your question certainly makes sense conceptually, but you may be a bit too far ahead of the curve....
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