ABSTRACT
Relatively minor structural manipulations of a waveform’s state can have dramatic consequences on both the timbre and the perceived fundamental of the resulting sound, where a state has a length on the order of two milliseconds. The initial state is specified by describing: 1) the number of segments it is to have; 2) the type of each segment; 3) the sequence of segments; and 4) the number of iterations of that state. Algorithms have been developed for generating continuously changing waveforms from a specified initial state. The perceived fundamental frequency is the result of the changing length of the state, and the timbre is the result of the variety of amplitudes, and the disjunct and conjunct relations between neighboring segments.
Currently, a segment can be one of three types: 1) a wiggle, a sequence of samples at one amplitude; 2) a twiggle, a sequence of samples whose amplitudes have a linear rise to and fall from a specified peak; and 3) a ciggle, a sequence of samples whose amplitudes rise to a specified peak and return to their starting magnitude in two second-order polynomial curves.
