Chapter 10 Further Reading: Electronic Sound & Synthesis

Foundational Texts — FM Synthesis

Chowning, John M. "The Synthesis of Complex Audio Spectra by Means of Frequency Modulation." Journal of the Audio Engineering Society 21, no. 7 (1973): 526–534. The original paper that introduced FM synthesis to the world. Remarkably readable for a primary research paper — Chowning explains his discovery clearly, with worked examples of carrier/modulator ratios and their spectral effects. Essential primary source reading.

Schottstaedt, Bill. "An Introduction to FM Synthesis." Stanford CCRMA Technical Report, 1977. A detailed technical treatment of FM synthesis mathematics, including the Bessel function derivation of sideband amplitudes. Available online through the CCRMA archive. Requires undergraduate-level mathematics but rewards careful reading.

Dodge, Charles, and Thomas A. Jerse. Computer Music: Synthesis, Composition, and Performance. Schirmer Books, 1985 (2nd ed. 1997). A comprehensive textbook on computer music that covers additive, FM, subtractive, and granular synthesis with mathematical depth. Chapter 5 on FM synthesis is particularly thorough. The standard graduate-level text for a generation of computer music researchers.

Foundational Texts — Synthesis in General

Roads, Curtis. The Computer Music Tutorial. MIT Press, 1996. The most comprehensive single reference on synthesis, covering every synthesis paradigm from additive to granular to physical modeling. Over 1,200 pages — more encyclopedia than textbook. Indispensable as a reference; chapters can be read independently.

Vail, Mark. The Synthesizer: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding, Programming, Playing, and Recording. Oxford University Press, 2014. An accessible, musician-focused guide to synthesis that covers technical details without overwhelming the non-specialist reader. Covers analog, digital, and software synthesis. Recommended for readers who want practical synthesis knowledge alongside the physics.

Smith, Julius O. Physical Audio Signal Processing: For Virtual Musical Instruments and Audio Effects. W3K Publishing, 2010. (Also available free online at ccrma.stanford.edu) The authoritative text on physical modeling synthesis and digital waveguide synthesis. Written by one of the key developers of waveguide synthesis methods. Chapters on the Karplus-Strong algorithm, digital filters, and instrument modeling are directly relevant to this chapter. The online version is free and includes interactive examples.

Analog Synthesis and the Moog Legacy

Pinch, Trevor, and Frank Trocco. Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer. Harvard University Press, 2002. A thorough historical and sociological account of the Moog synthesizer's development and cultural impact. Based on interviews with Robert Moog, Herbert Deutsch, Wendy Carlos, and other key figures. Recommended for understanding the cultural context of analog synthesis.

Rhea, Tom. "Electronic Music Pioneer: Robert A. Moog." Contemporary Keyboard (various issues, 1977–1981). A series of interviews with Moog in which he explains, in accessible terms, the physics of his synthesizer designs. Available through university library databases.

Pinch, Trevor. Instruments and Voices: An Ethnography of the Moog Synthesizer. Cambridge University Press, 2008. A more academic treatment of the social construction of the synthesizer as a musical instrument. Examines how musicians, engineers, and audiences together constructed the meaning and value of the Moog.

Karplus-Strong and Physical Modeling

Karplus, Kevin, and Alex Strong. "Digital Synthesis of Plucked String and Drum Timbres." Computer Music Journal 7, no. 2 (1983): 43–55. The original Karplus-Strong paper. Clear, mathematically accessible, with audio demonstrations. A model of how to present a synthesis algorithm — the physics and mathematics are explained alongside the musical results.

Jaffe, David A., and Julius O. Smith. "Extensions of the Karplus-Strong Plucked-String Algorithm." Computer Music Journal 7, no. 2 (1983): 56–69. Published in the same issue as the Karplus-Strong paper, this companion paper extends the algorithm to handle additional timbral control — decay rates, pick position effects, and more. Shows how physical modeling can be systematically extended.

Smith, Julius O. "Waveguide Simulation of Non-Cylindrical Acoustic Tubes." Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, 1991. Introduces the generalization of Karplus-Strong to non-cylindrical tubes, enabling physical modeling of woodwind instruments. More technical than the Karplus-Strong papers but demonstrates the power of the waveguide approach.

Digital Audio Physics

Pohlmann, Ken C. Principles of Digital Audio. 6th ed. McGraw-Hill, 2010. The standard reference on digital audio engineering. Chapters on sampling theory, quantization, and digital filters are directly relevant to Section 10.10. Thorough and technically grounded without requiring deep mathematics.

Bosi, Marina, and Richard E. Goldberg. Introduction to Digital Audio Coding and Standards. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003. A graduate-level text on the physics and engineering of audio coding — how digital audio is compressed (MP3, AAC, etc.) without perceptible quality loss. Relevant background for understanding both digital synthesis and digital audio storage.

History and Culture of Electronic Music

Holmes, Thom. Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture. 4th ed. Routledge, 2012. A comprehensive history of electronic music from the Telharmonium to the present. Covers both the technical development (synthesis methods, hardware, software) and the cultural development (composers, genres, movements). Excellent context for understanding why synthesis developed the way it did.

Théberge, Paul. Any Sound You Can Imagine: Making Music/Consuming Technology. Wesleyan University Press, 1997. A sociological analysis of how digital musical instruments (synthesizers, samplers, MIDI equipment) changed music-making practices and the cultural economy of music production in the 1980s and 1990s.

Carlos, Wendy. "Tuning: At the Crossroads." Computer Music Journal 11, no. 1 (1987): 29–43. Wendy Carlos's own account of her experiments with alternative tuning systems using the synthesizer — only possible because synthesis allows any frequency to be generated. A fascinating account of synthesis enabling musical physics experiments that acoustic instruments cannot accommodate.

Online Resources

CCRMA (Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics) — ccrma.stanford.edu Stanford's music and acoustics research center, where FM synthesis was discovered and where much of the foundational work in physical modeling synthesis was done. The website provides free access to many technical reports and papers.

Julius O. Smith's Online Textbooks — ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/ Professor Smith maintains several free, complete textbooks online: "Mathematics of the Discrete Fourier Transform," "Physical Audio Signal Processing," and others. The physical audio signal processing text is directly relevant to this chapter and is exceptional in its clarity and depth.

Syntorial (syntorial.com) — Interactive synthesizer training software that teaches synthesis principles by doing. Demonstrates the relationship between synthesis parameters and acoustic output more directly than any text can.

Surge Synthesizer (surge-synthesizer.github.io) — A free, open-source software synthesizer whose source code is publicly available. Allows students to examine the exact algorithms (FM, wavetable, subtractive, etc.) in working code. An ideal platform for the exercises in this chapter.

Neural Audio and Future Synthesis

Engel, Jesse, et al. "DDSP: Differentiable Digital Signal Processing." International Conference on Learning Representations, 2020. (arxiv.org/abs/2001.04643) A landmark paper from Google Magenta introducing a hybrid approach that combines physical signal processing with neural network learning. Demonstrates that neural networks trained to use physically meaningful representations (oscillators, filters) generalize better than those trained on raw audio. Directly relevant to Section 10.13.

Oord, Aaron van den, et al. "WaveNet: A Generative Model for Raw Audio." arXiv:1609.03499 (2016). The WaveNet paper from DeepMind introduced autoregressive neural audio generation — generating audio one sample at a time using a deep neural network. Foundational to modern neural audio synthesis.

Roberts, Adam, et al. "A Hierarchical Latent Vector Model for Learning Long-Term Structure in Music." International Conference on Machine Learning, 2018. From Google Magenta — demonstrates machine learning approaches to music generation that operate at multiple levels of structure (note, phrase, section). Relevant to understanding the scope and limits of neural approaches to music creation.

Listening Suggestions for Synthesis Exploration

  • Wendy Carlos: Switched-On Bach (1968) — pioneering Moog synthesis
  • Wendy Carlos: Switched-On Bach 2000 (1992) — same repertoire on 1990s digital equipment; compare the acoustic result
  • Brian Eno & Robert Fripp: No Pussyfooting (1973) — early tape-loop and synthesizer experimental music
  • Tangerine Dream: Phaedra (1974) — subtractive synthesis at its most atmospheric
  • Aphex Twin: Drukqs (2001) — physical modeling synthesis alongside prepared piano
  • Oneohtrix Point Never: R Plus Seven (2013) — advanced wavetable and digital synthesis
  • Holly Herndon: Platform (2015), PROTO (2019) — voice synthesis and neural audio

Synthesis Tools for Course Exercises

  • Python: numpy, scipy, matplotlib — all free; code in code/ directory uses these
  • Audacity (free): audio recording, spectral analysis, waveform visualization
  • VCVRack (free): modular synthesizer simulation, excellent for Moog-style patching exercises
  • FAUST (free): programming language for synthesis; compiles to C++, web audio, VST — ideal for physical modeling experiments
  • Max/MSP or Pure Data (Max: commercial; PD: free): graphical programming environments for signal processing experiments
  • Web Audio API (free, built into browsers): JavaScript-based synthesis, no installation required