Music and Acoustics: from Instrument to Computer

Sound examples


Welcome to this page which completes your book Music and Acoustics: from Instrument to Computer! The sound examples below follow the plan of the book. To listen to them, just click on the example name (your browser must be configured so that you can listen to mp3 files).

If you want to play with sounds, modify them or create new ones, the MATLAB files that have been used to create them or analyze them, as well as to produce the figures in the book, are available by clicking on (source file) near the examples. For using them on your computer, you need MATLAB and eventually the  SIGNAL TOOLBOX.

As usual, the source files are in the folder SOURCES and the sound mp3 files are in the folder SOUNDS. Finally, all what is needed for the practical applications which are proposed in the book can be found in the folder TP and its sub folders.

Chapter 1

Sinusoidal sounds : a well-known sequence (source file)
Almost periodical sounds : approximation of a trumpet sound  (source file)
Adding successive harmonics 1, 2, 3, 4 ... or 1, 3, 5, 7...  (source file)

Non periodical sounds ( source file) :
- issued from the partials of a membrane (the zeros of the Bessel function Jm)
   then multiplied by a decreasing envelope
- issued from the partials of a big bell
   then multiplied by a decreasing envelope
- original sound of the bell that has been analyzed

Norma by Maria Callas ( source file, via 3 types of analysis) : beginning, then "the rise"

Bird singing (source file): do you prefer the thistle eating or the mountain whistler?

Noise: do you prefer it white ( source file) or pink (source file)?

A-C-E ( source file)

The voice:
- sound "le chapeau" (source file)
- vowels A-E-I-O-U ( source file)

Low-pass, band-pass and high-pass ideal  filtering (source file):
- of the "triangle" signal (case 1, 2, 3, 4 above)
- of the "rectangular" signal (case 1, 3, 5, 7 above)

Chapter 2

Beats
Beat produced by two pure sounds at 440 and 442Hz (source file)
Decreasing beat speed (or increasing for the third) when tuning (source file):
the unison F4, the octave F3 F4, the fifth F3 C4 and the third F3 A3

Bars
Fixed bar (source file) :
- harmonics 1, 4, 9 and 16, then
- same sound multiplied by a decreasing envelope
Clamped bar ( source file) :
- partials with rate progression 1, 6.27, 17.55, 34.39, then
- same sound multiplied by a decreasing envelope

Membrane
cf. membrane at chapter 1

Tube ( source file) :
- pressure control (harmonics 1, 2, 3,...,15)
- speed control (harmonics 1, 3, 5,..., 15)

Same harmonics but different phases (source file) :
sum of sines et sum of cosines. Do you hear any difference?

Inharmonicity ( source file) of a harpsichord like string (source file) :
zero, medium and large

  Richness in high harmonics (source file) :
- C flute with four small keys
- harpsichord note

What a saw... ( source file)

Filtering a piano C3 (source file) :
original sound, then the three first harmonics, the first harmonic and the third harmonic

Different harmonics envelopes  (source file) :
- trumpet (Miles Davis)
- piano C4

Chapter 3

Played on a synthesizer ( source file):
- three major scales ( source file): tempered, Pythagorean and Zarlino
- major arpeges ( source file): tempered, Pythagorean and Zarlino
- major chords ( source file): tempered, Pythagorean and Zarlino

Chapter 4

Acoustic illusion, or the endlessly starting over:
- endlessly tone scale (source file), acoustic analog to Escher stairs
- endlessly glissandi ( source file), constructed on octave intervals or major thirds intervals
- variant ( source file)

Frequency masking : test your ear!
The following sounds (source file) have been obtained by adding a pure sound
with frequency 1000Hz and a pure sound with frequency 1010Hz
and a relative loudness level of -35dB, -30dB, -25dB, -20dB, -15dB
When do you start hearing the second sound?
Same thing for a masked sound with frequency:
- 1200Hz and a relative loudness level of -35dB, -30dB, -25dB, -20dB, -15dB
- 2500Hz and a relative loudness level of -55dB, -50dB, -45dB, -40dB, -35dB

Chapter 5

Ascending sound and aliasing effect (source file)

Quantization noise ( source file) :
A pure sound with frequency 440Hz, quantized with 16 bits, 12 bits, 8 bits and 4bits

Chapter 6

Chowning modulation
f0 = 220Hz, beta = 2*f0 and successively (source file) :
f1 =  f0,  1.5 f0,  2 f0,  2.5 f0,  3 f0,  3.5 f0
f0 = 220Hz, f1 = f0 and successively ( source file) :
beta  =  0,  f0,  2 f0,  3 f0,  4 f0
f0 = 220Hz, f1 = 2*f0 and successively :
beta  =  0,  f0,  2 f0,  3 f0,  4 f0
other examples created by using this technique (source file, synthe) :
- the "cyber-boomerang"
- the Fender

Reverberation (Moorer model, source file) applied to
the old house bell (source file)... no, from chapter 1 ( source file) :
- the bell without reverberation
- the bell with reverberation

Wah-wah effect ( source file,  function wawa):
- white noise and white noise wah-wah
- flute  and flute wah-wah

Vibrato supposed to remember something! (source file)
Leslie effect (source file,  hammond function)

Synthesis instruments examples

in conclusion, here are some instruments synthesis using the tools described allong these chapters:
organ, harpsichord, electric piano, synthesizer, vibraphone.

These examples were obtained by playing MIDI files with soundfonts created with MATLAB functions similar to those used for the examples above, e.g. the organ. The soundfont creation softwares (e.g. Vienna, free) allow adding various effects to the samples, such as reverberation.


MIDI files contain the necessary information for playing a music piece: tempo, pitch, duration, etc.