Connexions module: m13599 1

Fourier Series and Gibbs

Phenomenon Version 1.21: Oct 24, 2008 11:52 pm GMT-5

University Of Washington Dept. of Electrical Engineering

This work is produced by The Connexions Project and licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution License ∗

Abstract
Fourier series, sums of cosines.
This development of these labs was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No.
DUE-0511635. Any opinions, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the
authors and do not necessarily reect the views of the National Science Foundation.

1 Introduction
In this lab, we will look at the Fourier series representation of periodic signals using MATLAB. In particular,
we will study the truncated Fourier series reconstruction of a periodic function.

2 Some Useful MATLAB Commands

• abs, compute the complex magnitude.
• angle, compute the phase angle.
• clear, clears all variables.
• help <command>, online help.
• whos, list all variables and their sizes.

3 Signal Synthesis
We will see in exercise 3 that we can approximate a square wave with the Fourier series, but rst let us
approximate something more interesting, say a musical instrument? Many instruments produce very periodic
waveforms.
Exercise 1 Synthesizer
1. Create a script le called sigsynth.m to put your code in for this problem.
2. Download the trumpet sound sample trumpet.mat from the Sound Resources page. The 1

sample rate, Fs, of the trumpet is 11,025 Hz. Play this sound with the sound command
(remember to include the correct sample rate).
∗ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
1 "Sound resources" <http://cnx.org/content/m13854/latest/>

http://cnx.org/content/m13599/1.21/
Connexions module: m13599 2

3. Plot only a small section of the trumpet sound to show three or so periods (try 100 samples
or so). Does it looks the same at any time in the sound?
4. View the frequency spectrum of this sound by entering the following commands,
Fs = 11025; % our sample rate is 11025 Hz
Y = fft(trumpet, 512); % take the fft of trumpet
Ymag = abs(Y); % take the mag of Y
f = Fs * (0:256)/512; % get a meaningful axis
plot(f, Ymag(1:257)); % plot Ymag (only half the points are needed)
xlabel('Frequency (Hz)')
ylabel('Magnitude')

You should now see a series of peaks (these are the harmonics of the instrument).
5. We will synthesize the instrument using only the peak information. You can use the "data
cursor" tool in MATLAB's gure window to easily read graph data. Write down the frequency
and its strength (magnitude) for ve to ten of the strongest peaks.
6. Create a function called addcosines.m that takes in three vectors: time vector t, frequency
vector freq, and magnitude vector mag. Have your new function use a for-loop to add together
cosines, one for each frequency/magnitude pair in the freq and mag vectors. Remember to
normalize your output vector after you add up all the cosines (the output should be between
-1 and 1), like in the Functions in MATLAB and the Groove Station lab. Use the data you
2

collected from the frequency plot of the trumpet sound with your new function to sum cosines
at the noted frequencies.
7. Here are some hints for the above. Use a for-loop to create a cosine at each frequency in the freq
vector. Your cosine function should look something like this, mag(i)*cos(2*pi*freq(i)*t);.
Remember your time vector will have the form 0:1/Fs:time_in_seconds.
Note: The command soundsc will normalize the input before it plays the sound.

For example, if you had two harmonics, one at 100 Hz with magnitude 1 and another at 150
Hz with magnitude 2, then your vectors will be,
t = 0:1/Fs:1; % one second time vector at 11025 Hz
freq = [100 150];
mag = [1 2];

8. Play trumpet and your new synthesized sound. Do they sound the same? Use subplot to plot
a small section of your new synthesized sound along with the trumpet sound, does it look the
same? Save your plot as synthwaves.tif.
9. Try synthesizing the sound with fewer frequencies, then try more frequencies. How does this
aect the sound of our synthesized trumpet?
10. You will need to show the TA the following les:

sigsynth.m
addcosines.m
synthwaves.tif

2 "Functions in MATLAB and the Groove Station" <http://cnx.org/content/m13555/latest/>

http://cnx.org/content/m13599/1.21/
Connexions module: m13599 3

Exercise 2
That funny phase You probably noticed in the last problem that even though the wave forms
looked fairly dierent, the sound was similar. Let's look into this a bit deeper with a simpler sound.
1. Create a script le called phasefun.m to put your code in for this problem.
2. Pick two harmonic frequencies and generate a signal from two cosines at these frequencies
added together and call it sig1. Use Fs = 8000 (remember that you can reproduce only
frequencies that are less than Fs/2).
3. Now generate a second signal called sig2 exactly the same as the rst one, except time delay
the second cosine by a half cycle (half of its period).
4. Use subplot to show a few periods of both signals, do they look dierent? Save the plot as
phasesigs.tif. What did the time delay do to the phase?
5. Play each signal with soundsc, do they sound dierent?
6. Redo sig2 with a few dierent delays and compare the sound to the rst signal.
7. Create a sig3 that is one cosine at some frequency. Now add sig3 with a timed delayed
version of itself and call it sig4. Use a quarter cycle delay.
8. Use subplot and plot a few periods of sig3 and sig4. Play them with soundsc, do they
sound dierent to you?
9. What is suggested about our hearing capabilities from this experiment?
10. You will need to show the TA the following les:

phasefun.m
phasesigs.tif

4 Truncated Fourier Series

In this section, we'll reconstruct the periodic function x(t), shown in Figure 1, by synthesizing a periodic
signal from a variable number of Fourier Series coecients, and observe similarities and dierences in the
synthesized signal.

Figure 1: Periodic Signal

Exercise 3 Gibbs phenomena

http://cnx.org/content/m13599/1.21/
Connexions module: m13599 4

1. Create a script le called gibbs.m to put your code in for this problem.
2. Click here to download the MATLAB function Ck.m. Take a look at the contents of the
3

function. This function takes one argument k , and creates the k th Fourier series coecient
for the squarewave above:
0 if k = 0, k even
Ck = { (1)
1 2kπ kπ
if k odd



jkπ cos 3 − cos 3

jπ = 0 + j0.3183 . Plot the magnitude and phase of the coecients Ck for

Ck (1) = −1
k ∈ {−10, −9, . . . , 9, 10} . The magnitude and phase should be plotted separately using the
subplot command, with the magnitude plotted in the top half of the window and the phase in
the bottom half. Place frequency w on the x axis. Use the MATLAB command stem instead
of plot to emphasize that the coecients are a function of integer-valued (not continuous) k
. Label your plots.
3. Save the graph as Coeff.tif.
4. Write whatever script/function les you need to implement the calculation of the signal x (t)
with a truncated Fourier series:
PKmax jkω0 t


x (t) = k=−Kmax Ck e
PKmax (2)
= k=0 (2|Ck |cos (kω0 t + ∠C k ))

for a given Kmax

Note: You can avoid numerical problems and ensure a real answer if you use the cosine
form. For this example, w0 = 1.
5. Produce plots of x (t) for t ∈ [−5, 5] for each of the following cases: Kmax = 5; 15; and 30.
For all the plots, use as your time values the MATLAB vector t=-5:.01:5. Stack the three
plots in a single gure using the subplot command and include your name in the title of the
gure. Save the gure as FourTrunc.tif
6. Add clear comments describing what the les do. You will need to show the TA the following
les:

gibbs.m
Coeff.tif
FourTrunc.tif

As you add more cosines you'll note that you do get closer to the square wave (in terms of squared error), but
that at the edges there is some undershoot and overshoot that becomes shorter in time, but the magnitude of
the undershoot and overshoot stay large. This persistent undershoot and overshoot at edges is called Gibbs
Phenomenon.
In general, this kind of "ringing" occurs at discontinuities if you try to synthesize a sharp edge out of
too few low frequencies. Or, if you start with a real signal and lter out its higher frequencies, it is "as
if" you had synthesized the signal from low frequencies. Thus, low-pass ltering (a lter that only passes
low-frequencies) will also cause this kind of ringing.
For example, when compressing an audio signal, higher frequencies are usually removed (that is, the
audio signal is low-pass ltered). Then, if there is an impulse edge or "attack" in the music, ringing will
occur. However, the ringing (called "pre-echo" in audio) can be heard only before the attack, because the
attack masks the ringing that comes after it (this masking eect happens in your head). High-quality MP3
systems put a lot of eort into detecting attacks and processing the signals to avoid pre-echo.
3 http://cnx.org/content/m13599/latest/Ck.m

http://cnx.org/content/m13599/1.21/
Connexions module: m13599 5

5 What to Show the TA

Show the TA ALL m-les that you created or edited and the les below.

gibbs.m
Coeff.tif
FourTrunc.tif
sigsynth.m
addcosines.m
synthwaves.tif
phasefun.m
phasesigs.tif
any wav files created

6 Fun Links
An applet here provides a great interface for listening to sinusoids and their harmonics. There are some
4

well-known auditory illusions associated with the perception of pitch here .

5

4 http://www.phy.ntnu.edu.tw/ntnujava/viewtopic.php?t=33
5 http://physics.mtsu.edu/∼wmr/julianna.html

http://cnx.org/content/m13599/1.21/