A unified digital waveguide (infra)structure for synthesizing wind instrument sounds
Gary P. Scavone · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2005
Virtual acoustic models provide researchers a means for testing and verifying their scientific understanding of physical systems. As well, they allow explorations in a world free from physical constraints. A digital waveguide structure is presented which implements a generalized air column, or resonator, model for wind instrument sound synthesis. This system has a physical inspiration and interpretation, a ‘‘blowed string,’’ but is an otherwise impossible reality. The structure produces harmonic resonant modes at integer multiples of a fundamental, with controls to vary harmonic content. It is useful for simulating both cylindrical and conical air columns of such instruments as clarinets, saxophones, flutes, oboes, and trumpets. Further, this structure robustly interconnects with several different non-linear ‘‘reed’’ models to produce a rich variety of wind instrument sounds. The result is a highly efficient computational algorithm that can be used to perform real-time sound synthesis on consumer-grade computers. [Work supported by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation.]