Introduction to pulsar synthesis
Curtis Roads · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2001
Pulsar synthesis (PS) is a method of electronic music synthesis based on the generation of trains of sonic particles. PS can produce either rhythms or tones as it criss-crosses perceptual time spans. The basic method generates sounds similar to vintage electronic music sonorities, with several important enhancements. The advanced method combines multiple pulsar trains and convolution with sampled sounds. Together with Alberto de Campo, the author has designed a program for pulsar synthesis called PulsarGenerator. Applications of pulsar synthesis in compositions by the author are noted.