Re: oscillators and the Web Audio API

Hello Chris,

On 2/7/12 12:41 PM, Chris Rogers wrote:
> Up to this point we've relied on AudioBufferSourceNode for general
> sample playback, and also periodic waveform playback.  I completely
> agree that there are some challenges and limitations to this approach.
>   Nevertheless, I've worked on a demo using this approach in my
> "wavetable-synth" and have made some initial (although incomplete and
> not fully developed) anti-aliased wavetables:
> http://chromium.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/samples/audio/lib/wavetable.js

Your approach is similar to how I implemented a band-limited sawtooth in 
JSyn. I used a series of 8 tables, one per octave, filled with 
increasing numbers of partials. I then interpolate between them 
depending on frequency. I window the partials using a raised cosine to 
eliminate the Gibbs phenomenon.

I also implemented a band-limited sawtooth using a Differentiated 
Parabolic Waveform (DPW) algorithm. It is *much* simpler, is more CPU 
efficient and sounds almost as good as the multi-wavetable approach.

Band limited square and pulse waveforms can be generated from the 
band-limited sawtooth.

> But, back to your proposal.  Having the pure and extremely high-quality
> anti-aliased oscillators would be great to have, especially if you have
> code to contribute.  Sound quality does matter, so I really appreciate
> this.

I would be happy to contribute 'C' or Java code to Web Audio API. I'll 
study the code base and then we can talk offline.

Regarding sound quality, you can hear how truly terrible the aliasing 
can be in my example JSyn Applet.

http://www.softsynth.com/jsyn/examples/tj_seeosc.php

Sweep the regular Sawtooth back and forth between 3000 and 9000 Hz. Then 
do the same with the SawBL and SawDPW. Much smoother.

If you hear pops and crackles it is due to a bug in JavaSound on Mac.

> One thing I'm curious about is how these oscillators can avoid
> aliasing when used in FM applications.  It's certainly a goal of mine to
> have audio-rate signals modulating AudioParams like .playbackRate or
> .frequency

Extreme FM using sine waves can produce aliasing. This technique will 
not prevent that. The problem gets really severe when using 
non-band-limited sawtooth or square waves to do FM. Yikes! Using 
band-limited oscillators will certainly help in this case but cannot 
completely eliminate aliasing.

> The sine, sawtooth, square, pulse and impulse oscillators are considered
> common in computer-music and so would fit into the Web Audio API's
> philosophy of implementing common audio building blocks.

Noise sources are also pretty fundamental.

> I would suggest that the AudioOscillator could have an attribute called
> .oscillatorType which could be one of several values.  I would also be
> interested in your take on how to implement anti-aliased oscillators
> with arbitrary waveforms.  Optimally, the AudioOscillator would be able
> to handle more than just the simple waveform types.  I have some ideas
> of my own, but we can leave that for later discussion.

If the arbitrary waveform is represented by a table then one can 
generate pre-filtered tables for the higher frequencies. The key is to 
do the filtering before sampling the wavetable at the high frequency.

Phil Burk

Received on Wednesday, 8 February 2012 01:38:39 UTC