CONTRAPUNK

Part I · Chapters 1–9

Wavetable Synthesis

How Synthesis Problems Created DSP Concepts

Follow the instrument problems that made modern synthesis mathematics necessary.

  1. 01
    Available now

    Electrical Tone and the Harmonic Idea

    Harmonics, additive synthesis, spectra, and the Telharmonium.

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  2. 02
    Available now

    Making Electronic Oscillation Performable

    LC oscillation, heterodyning, gesture, and articulation.

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  3. 03
    Available now

    When the Studio Became the Instrument

    Fixed sound, tape editing, signal chains, modulation, and stored control.

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  4. 04
    Available now

    Voltage Control and Modular Thinking

    Control and audio rate, envelopes, LFOs, patch graphs, and subtractive synthesis.

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  5. 05
    Available now

    Sound from Numbers

    Sampling, PCM, Nyquist, quantization, buffers, and computational signal graphs.

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  6. 06
    Planned in Part I

    The Stored-Waveform Oscillator

    Table lookup, phase accumulation, frequency increment, and wrap.

  7. 07
    Planned in Part I

    Reading Between Stored Samples

    Periodic interpolation, guard samples, reconstruction error, memory, and CPU.

  8. 08
    Planned in Part I

    Fourier Analysis Becomes a Construction Tool

    Fourier series, transforms, leakage, windows, and spectral construction.

  9. 09
    Planned in Part I

    Why Early Digital Oscillators Sounded Digital

    Aliasing, fold maps, discontinuities, quantization, and measurement.