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An Introduction To Additive Synthesis

Synth Secrets
Synthesizers > Synthesis / Sound Design, Synth Secrets
By Gordon Reid Published June 2000

Every pitched sound can be thought of as a collection of individual sine waves

at frequencies related to the fundamental. Gordon Reid introduces
a powerful method of synthesis that works by manipulating these individual
harmonics.

For the past two months Synth Secrets has concentrated on frequency modulation, showing
(I hope) that FM synthesis (or 'Cross Modulation' as it often used to be called) is as relevant In this article...
to analogue synthesizers as it is to the digital synths that made it a household name. So now
it's time to move on — to another realm of sound creation that is normally associated only Introduction
with digital synths. This month's Synth Secrets takes us into the murky world of Additive The Principle Of Additive Synthesis
An Early Electronic Analogue Synthesizer
Synthesis.
An Analogue Additive Synthesizer
Fourier Synthesis And Beyond
The Principle Of Additive Synthesis Now Let's Get Noisy
Don't Despair
The concept underlying additive synthesis is very simple, and I can best explain it by Additive Synthesizers
turning all the way back to Synth Secrets Part 1 (SOS May 1999). In this, I showed that you
could represent any waveform as a set of sine waves. For a simple harmonic oscillator, each In this Series
of these sine waves has a frequency that is an integer multiple of the fundamental
frequency, and we call these the 'harmonics' of the sound. Just to refresh our memory, let's Synth Secrets: all 63 Parts on Sound On Sound site
take the most common synthesizer waveform — the sawtooth wave — as an example. What's In A Sound?
The Physics Of Percussion
Figure 1 shows an idealised sawtooth wave. You'll never Modifiers & Controllers
see this in nature because the universe doesn't allow Of Filters & Phase Relationships
physical objects such as air molecules or the cones of Further With Filters
a 4x12 cabinet to accelerate or move infinitely quickly. Of Responses & Resonance
Unfortunately, this is what the ideal waveform requires as Envelopes, Gates & Triggers
it moves instantaneously from its nadir to its zenith, but More About Envelopes
An Introduction To VCAs
we're not going to worry about that. Now, you may recall
Modulation
that this waveform has a simple harmonic relationship,
Amplitude Modulation
expressed as follows: every harmonic is present, and the
An Introduction To Frequency Modulation
amplitude of the nth harmonic is 1/n times that of the
More On Frequency Modulation
fundamental. We draw this as shown in Figure 2.
An Introduction To Additive Synthesis
An Introduction To ESPs & Vocoders
It's important that you fully appreciate that, within limits,
From Sample & Hold To Sample-rate Converters
Figures 1 and 2 represent exactly the same thing. I have
(1)
truncated the number of harmonics in Figure 2 to just nine From Sample & Hold To Sample-rate Converters
whereas there should, in theory, be an infinite series, but (2)
neither my screen nor your copy of SOS is infinitely wide, Priorities & Triggers
so this will have to do. If you're worried that truncating the Figure 1: [top] An idealised sawtooth Duophony
waveform. Figure 2: [bottom] The first
series so severely will ruin my argument, take a look at Introducing Polyphony
nine components in the harmonic
Figure 3. This is the waveform generated by the nine series of a sawtooth wave.
From Polyphony To Digital Synths
harmonics in Figure 2, and no others. It's remarkably close From Springs, Plates & Buckets To Physical
to the ideal sawtooth, don't you think? Modelling
Formant Synthesis
Moving on, let's ask ourselves the following question. If we Synthesizing Wind Instruments
can represent a waveform at any given moment by Synthesizing Brass Instruments
describing its harmonic content at that moment, is it Brass Synthesis On A Minimoog
reasonable to assume that we can take a harmonic series Roland SH101 & ARP Axxe Brass Synthesis
Synthesizing Plucked Strings
and derive a unique waveform from it? Of course it is! (Well,
The Theoretical Acoustic Guitar Patch
to be precise... as long as we overlook the phase
A Final Attempt To Synthesize Guitars
relationships of the harmonics, of course it is!) This is
Synthesizing Percussion
because, as I have already stated, the waveform and the
Practical Percussion Synthesis: Timpani
harmonic series are simply different ways of expressing the
Synthesizing Drums: The Bass Drum
same thing. Practical Bass Drum Synthesis
Synthesizing Drums: The Snare Drum
Armed with this knowledge, we can take our series of nine
Practical Snare Drum Synthesis
harmonics and use them to create a huge range of
Analysing Metallic Percussion
waveforms. For example, let's give each of the nine the same
Synthesizing Realistic Cymbals
amplitude. If we now assume that these are the only
Practical Cymbal Synthesis
harmonics within the sound, we can calculate the waveform. Synthesizing Bells
(See Figures 4 and 5.) As you can see, this waveform looks Synthesizing Cowbells & Claves
quite unlike the one we had before. OK, so there's a passing Figure 3: [top] The waveform
Synthesizing Pianos
generated by the nine harmonics
resemblance, but all the 'squiggles' in the wave show that it Synthesizing Acoustic Pianos On The Roland JX10
in a 1/n series. Figure 4: [bottom]
has a much greater high-frequency content, and indeed it The nine harmonics of a waveform, [Part 1]
sounds very much brighter than the sawtooth of Figure 3. each with equal amplitude. Synthesizing Acoustic Pianos On The Roland JX10
Likewise, you could generate a passable approximation to [Part 2]
a square wave by using your knowledge of which harmonics Synthesizing Acoustic Pianos On The Roland JX10
[Part 3]
are present and in which quantities. (See Figures 6 and 7.)
Synthesizing Strings: String Machines
So here is the basis of additive synthesis: because, at any given Synthesizing Strings: PWM & String Sounds
moment, you can describe any waveform in terms of the Synthesizing Bowed Strings: The Violin Family
Practical Bowed-string Synthesis
frequencies and amplitudes of its components, you can take
Practical Bowed-string Synthesis (continued)
the appropriate number of sine waves and mix them together
Articulation & Bowed-string Synthesis
at the appropriate frequencies and in the appropriate
Synthesizing Pan Pipes
quantities to regenerate the waveform. Indeed, if you have
Synthesizing Simple Flutes
a large modular synth you can easily recreate the examples
Practical Flute Synthesis
shown above. All you need are nine oscillators, nine VCAs, Synthesizing Tonewheel Organs: Part 1
a mixer, and some form of Gate pulse to open the amplifiers Synthesizing Tonewheel Organs: Part 2
when desired (see Figure 8). Yes, it's hopelessly inefficient, but Synthesizing Hammond Organ Effects
the principle holds. Synthesizing The Rest Of The Hammond Organ:
Part 1

An Early Electronic Analogue Synthesizer

Synthesizing The Rest Of The Hammond Organ:
Part 2
Figure 5: [top] The waveform
From Analogue To Digital Effects
If, in the analogue domain, additive synthesis were limited to generated by the harmonic
series in Figure 4. Figure 6: Creative Synthesis With Delays
monstrously over-endowed modular synths, you might think
[bottom] The first three More Creative Synthesis With Delays
that this would be the end of our story. But it isn't, so this isn't. harmonics of a square wave. The Secret Of The Big Red Button
The choice of nine harmonics in each of these examples is not
an accident, because it describes a very common analogue, additive
SOS Competitions
synth. Sure, you may not think of it in this way, and you may be
surprised to discover that it predates what we now think of as Win! Heritage Audio i73 PRO Edge
'conventional' VCO-VCF-VCA analogue synthesis by about 30 years.
This instrument is the Hammond Tonewheel Additive Synthesizer.
Oops, sorry. I mean, it's the Hammond Organ.

Provided that the Hammond in question is a classic 'drawbar' model,

not one of the modern ones with 'tabs' for the sounds, let's dispel
any doubts that you may have regarding its status as a powerful
additive synthesizer. To do this, I'll describe the Hammond itself in
a bit more detail...

The sound of a tonewheel organ is generated by 91 discs sitting on

an axle that runs much of the length of the instrument. Each of
these is shaped like an old thre'penny bit so that, when rotated in
front of a pickup, it generates an electrical current that is pretty
Figure 7: [top] The
close to sinusoidal (ie. pretty close to a sine wave). If you have just
waveform produced by
one drawbar extended when you play, each key taps the output just the first three 'square
from just one disc, thus making each note a reasonably pure sine wave' harmonics. Figure 8:
wave. (This statement ignores the distortions introduced by the [bottom] Configuring 20 Readers' Ads
valve circuitry that infests a vintage Hammond, but we're not modules as an additive
synthesizer.
considering such delicacies here!) If you extend a second drawbar VIEW ALL ADS CREATE FREE AD
simultaneously, you will add the output from another disc into the sound. This means that
you will now have two sine waves per note. Pull out a third, and a third sine wave is added...
On the same subject
and so on.
The Secret Of The Big Red Button
July 2004
More Creative Synthesis With Delays
June 2004
Creative Synthesis With Delays
May 2004
From Analogue To Digital Effects
April 2004
Synthesizing The Rest Of The Hammond Organ:
Part 2
March 2004

From the same manufacturer

Kawai MP8
November 2005
Figure 9: The classic Hammond configuration of nine drawbars per registration.
Kawai MP9500
February 2003
Figure 9 shows the classic Hammond configuration consisting of nine drawbars (see table,
Kawai MP9000
above). Each of these has nine amplitude positions (1 to 8, plus 'off') so many millions of
January 2000
possible combinations (more usually called 'registrations') are available. (There are
Synth School: Part 4
a handful of Hammonds with more than nine drawbars per registration, and the spinet October 1997
models have just seven on the lower manual, but we're going to ignore complications such Kawai K5000R & K5000S
as these.) July 1997

So there you have it: nine harmonically related pitches, each with nine possible volumes,
and you can combine these in any way you choose. It's a very small leap to realise that this SIGN UP TO
is, almost by definition, an additive synthesizer capable of producing millions of unique SOS NEWSLETTERS
waveforms. But surely this can't be the be-all and end-all of additive synthesis? When all is
said and done, the Hammond sounds, well, like an organ, not a powerful synthesizer.
There's obviously something missing.

An Analogue Additive Synthesizer

We started this article recapping Synth Secrets Part 1, so now let's jump forward a few
months to Synth Secrets Parts 4 to 8 (SOS August to December 1999). In my discussions
about filters and envelopes, I postulated that sounds will always sound static and
uninteresting if they do not change in time. So this gives us a clue to today's problem: the
Hammond, while a powerful signal generator, has no means to shape or contour those
signals into something more involving. So let's encapsulate this in another Synth Secret:

Organs sound like organs not because of the simplicity (or not) of their waveform generators, but
because their sounds do not change over time.

Or, to put this another way: Latest SOS Videos

No matter how clever the method of synthesis, and no matter how complex an initial waveform
may be, any timbre will sound static and 'organ-like' if it does not change in time.

One way to add interest is by applying 'effects' such as phasers, flangers, or echo units to
the basic signal. Unfortunately, these do not affect the essential nature of the sound.
Indeed, the Hammond has its own particular set of effects — chorus/vibrato, reverb, and
the wonderful Leslie rotary speaker — and these help to give the instrument its distinctive
sound. But you could not call these effects a method of synthesis, so we must look
elsewhere if we are significantly to improve our additive synthesizer.
AR Rahman & Firdaus Studios: A Scoring Stage For The 21st
Consider sampling the output from a tonewheel Hammond without the chorus/vibrato, Century
reverb, or Leslie effects. Now consider playing this sample through the contoured filters and
amplifiers that no doubt reside within your sampler. As you might imagine, the result would
sound much more like a conventional synthesizer, albeit one with a more complex initial
waveform than that produced by conventional oscillators. This then suggests how we can
modify the 'instrument' in Figure 8 to design a more interesting additive synthesizer: simply
add a time-varying filter and a time-varying amplifier after the output from the mixer
(Figure 10).

However, this still is not a very interesting additive synthesizer.

Indeed, if we ignore the absence of modulators (and the fact
that this discussion has limited itself, so far, to sine wave
oscillators) this is not much different from a multi-oscillator
synth such as a Minimoog. It's just that we have nine oscillators
instead of three.
Building A Library: Spitfire Audio's ABBEY ROAD
Now, consider the evolution of a real sound such as a plucked ORCHESTRA | Chapter 1
string. We know from experience that this is loud and bright at
the start of the note, and becomes quieter and 'darker' as time
passes. So let's take this simplistic description, and see how we
can modify the 'synth' in Figure 10 to recreate these tonal
changes more accurately. Firstly, we must assign the pitches of
the oscillators to imitate the harmonic nature of the string. This
is simple — it's the 1/n harmonic series discussed many times
before. Secondly, we must consider how each of these
harmonics changes in time. This is also simple: we know that
the sound becomes duller as time passes, so the higher- Figure 10: [top] Adding filter and
amplitude contours to our basic
frequency harmonics must decay more rapidly than the lower Fraser T Smith | Producing 'SET FIRE TO THE RAIN' by Adele
additive synthesizer. Figure 11:
ones. Thirdly, we must determine how the overall brightness [bottom] A more complex and
and loudness of the sound changes as the note progresses, useful additive synthesizer.
and create filter and amplifier profiles that emulate this. But
hang on a minute — if a sound can, at any instant, be determined by the relative pitches
and amplitudes of its constituent harmonics, we have no need for these filters and
amplifiers — the changes in the harmonics do all the work for us. This understanding then
leads us to Figure 11, which is much closer to describing how a real additive synthesizer
works.

As you can see, this instrument lacks the filters and output VCA of
a conventional synth. However, it is still capable of creating most
of the timbres of a typical VCO-VCF-VCA configuration, plus many,
many others besides.

So let's now design our simple plucked string sound. For example,
let's say that Oscillator 1 produces a sine wave at the fundamental
(1st harmonic) frequency, Oscillator 2 produces a sine wave at the
2nd harmonic frequency, and so on. Now, let say that Amplifier 1
causes the sound of Oscillator 1 to decay from its full level to
silence in some time T, Amplifier 2 causes the sound of Oscillator
2 to decay from its maximum level to silence in half the time, T/2...
and so on. These relationships mean that the higher harmonics
are louder at the start, so this sound is particularly bright in the
first instance, much like a plucked or hammered string. Note also
that, because the higher frequencies are decaying more quickly,
the sound becomes 'darker' as time passes. This is akin to a low-
pass filter following a simple AD contour with A=0 and D=T. I have Figure 12: [top] The four
contours controlling the
shown in Figure 12 the four envelopes produced by the four
amplifiers in Figure 11.
contour generators. Figure 13: [bottom] The four
decaying harmonics defined
If we now compute the waveform, we can see that the high by the contours in Figure 12.
frequencies decay quickly and that, by the time that the waveform
decays to silence, only the fundamental remains. I have shown the
individual sine waves in Figure 13 and the combined output in
Figure 14.

This result is much as you would expect, although in all fairness

you could more easily produce it using a sawtooth oscillator and
a low-pass filter controlled by a single 2-stage contour generator.
But now let's ask ourselves what happens if we make individual
harmonics change in less obvious ways. How about making the
third and fourth harmonics start quietly, get louder and louder,
and then decay quickly to zero at the end of the note? Now we
have a situation where the four contours are as shown in
Figure 15, and the output waveform looks like Figure 16.

Looking at Figure 16 you can see that the waveform becomes much
more complex as time passes. If you are experienced in looking at
such waveforms, you can also see that the high-frequency content
Figure 14: [top] The final
starts to dominate about half way through the note. This is a result
waveform output by our
that you simply can't obtain on a Minimoog, Odyssey, Prophet 5, or 'additive' synthesizer. Figure
any other synthesizer with a single signal path. OK, you can 15: [bottom] A combination
approximate this simple example on synths with multiple signal of harmonic contours that
paths (such as the Korg 800DV and, at the other end of the you can obtain on a
conventional analogue
spectrum, the Prophet 10), but even these are limited to the
synthesizer.
simplest of such cases. In contrast, a true
additive synthesizer will allow you to
manipulate individually the amplitudes of 32,
64, 128, or even 256 harmonics, and that's
something that no pre-patched analogue
synthesizer can do.

Fourier Synthesis And Beyond

This method of generating a complex sound
is often called Fourier synthesis. (This is in
honour of Joseph Fourier, the mathematician
who discovered the basis of what we now call
Figure 16: Applying the contours in Figure 15 to the
Fourier analysis — the mathematical method
sine wave oscillators in our additive synthesizer.
used to break sounds down into sine waves
— and Fourier synthesis — building them back up again.) However, the more general term
'additive synthesis' does not presuppose that your oscillators are limited to sine waves.
There is nothing stopping you from using square waves, sawtooth waves, or more complex
waves such as PWM'd pulse waves or the outputs of ring modulators to create extremely
complex time-varying spectra. Nevertheless, these complex waves can themselves be
broken down into their constituent sine waves, so the underlying principle is always the
same.

Unfortunately, if you're after complex, evolving, and involving sounds, you're going to need
a lot of sine-wave oscillators in your additive synthesizer. This is why the technique is
always implemented in digital technology rather than analogue. After all, in the digital
realm the oscillators are merely numbers in an equation, whereas the analogue additive
synthesizer will require tons (literally) of VCOs, EGs, VCAs, and mixers. And, while there's
nothing stopping you from creating additive sounds using just a handful of oscillators,
you're going to need dozens or even hundreds if you're going to try to recreate natural
sounds that contain a lot of overtones.

But even this isn't the end of the story because, for realism, each oscillator will require
modifiers that modulate its pitch and amplitude. Without these, the frequencies of the
various partials remain constant relative to each other, again resulting in cheesy organ
timbres. In addition, experience shows that a single LFO modulating all the harmonics
simultaneously will reinforce this cheesiness, so our analogue additive synth now needs to
grow to gargantuan proportions with each oscillator boasting a pitch LFO, pitch envelope,
amplitude LFO, and amplitude envelope.

Furthermore, and before we become completely carried away with simply generating
timbres, we should also remember that music isn't just about creating sounds, it's about
playing them, preferably with some sort of expression and character. So, to all of the above,
we need to add some form of control for velocity- and pressure-sensitivity, and maybe some
other real-time controllers. Now you have an analogue additive synth of which you can be
proud. Sure, it's going to be nigh on impossible to crowbar the thing into your bedroom
studio, but you hadn't intended to sleep there anyway. Had you?
 Now Let's Get Noisy
At this point, you may feel that your house-sized additive synth is complete. Unfortunately,
it isn't, and I regret to inform you that — despite everything that I've written numerous
times before — there are many sounds that you cannot break down into the sum of their
sinusoids. At this point, I should reassure you that nothing we have discussed so far is
actually wrong, it's just incomplete.

Consider the sounds of orchestral instruments such as flutes and trumpets. If you have the
appropriate (expensive) equipment, you can separate their sounds into their component
harmonics. However, if you then subtract these harmonics from the original sound there is
a residual element: noise. This noise may not be very loud or intrusive, but it's there
nonetheless. Consequently, many of your synthesized sounds will remain unconvincing if
they lack a little noise within them. So our additive synth needs yet another sound source —
a noise generator. Mind you, the noise produced by orchestral instruments is far from
'white' or 'pink'; it is heavily filtered by the nature of the instrument itself. So, despite
everything, we need at least one filter in our additive synth. And this, of course, will need its
own contour generator to ensure that the noise colour changes realistically over time. The
noise generator will also need a VCA and its associated contour generator.

If this analysis seems a little arcane, it isn't. In fact, this extension to pure additive synthesis
even has a name: if the analysis is performed beforehand it's called Spectral Modelling
Synthesis. Without the signal analysis, you could just call it the 'sinusoids plus noise' model
of sound generation (Figure 17).

Figure 17: A 'sinusoids plus noise' synthesizer.

Don't Despair
Despite this potential complexity, simple additive synthesis is possible on quite modest
analogue synths. So is 'sinusoids plus noise' synthesis. Indeed, I guarantee that anybody
playing an instrument with two or more independently tuneable oscillators (and, maybe,
a noise source) has created sounds employing tuned fifths, octaves, or whatever. As soon as
you have done this, you've entering the weird and wonderful world of additive synthesis. So
go and find a handful of extra oscillators, and get serious. Additives can be good for you,
and it's great fun, I promise.

Additive Synthesizers
I first experienced additive synthesis in the late '70s during a brief encounter with
a Fairlight CMI. This was a dream machine, and I fell in love with the concept of being
able to manipulate the very building blocks of a sound. In the mid-'80s Kawai released
the K5. With its powerful additive engine it was, in theory, capable of all manner of
sounds inaccessible from conventional analogue or digital synths. Unfortunately, the
reality did not live up to the promise and the K5, while interesting, suffered from the
bane of many '80s digital synths: unless treated with a great deal of love and attention
it sounded sterile and uninvolving.

The final stage in this tale of additive lust brings us to the present day and my Kawai
K5000S, a synth I like so much that I recently asked my producer Nick Magnus to buy
one so that I didn't have to move mine between our studios. Ahhh... a happy ending!

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