SPECTRAL ENVELOPE MICROVARIATIONS AND ITS EFFECT ON INSTRUMENTAL TIMBRE |
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Note: This paper was presented at a conference, citation information below. | |||
Ong, B.S. & Ang, M. (2000). “Spectral Envelope Microvariations And Its Effect On Instrumental Timbre.” First International Music Technology Conference in Southeast Asia (MusTech Asia’2000). The Mines Beach Resort Hotel, Serdang, 16-18 March 2000. Proc. pp. 1-6. | |||
ABSTRACT The analysis of the spectrum of a single violin tone, to better understand how the various partial components contribute to the sound produced, is undertaken. The analysis involves determining which partials are present and how these partials evolve with respect to time. The short-time Fourier transform is used to implement a solution for the time varying spectra by slicing the sound into short segments called windows and analysing each segment sequentially. Results indicate that spectrum changes over time contribute significantly to the timbre of the violin tone. A slight shifting of the fundamental frequency was also observed in the sound spectrum of all the sub-sections of the waveform, although this shifting was most marked in the attack and release portions of the ADSR envelope. The results also showed that the intensity of the fundamental harmonic was weaker in the initial attack stage, only dominating when the timbre of the tone stabilised. Within the release portion, inharmonic overtones were shown to occur in the upper partials of the sound spectrum. The complete paper is here. You will need the freely available Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it. |