Sound Synthesis Theory/Modulation Synthesis

1 Introduction There are different ways to implement this; most likely it

is suitable to simply multiply the two signals, but alterna-
When we talk about modulation from an audio synthe- tively the amplitude input of a carrier module can be the
sis point of view, we refer to a time-varying signal (the output of a modulator module, as well. The frequency of
carrier) being affected in some way by another (the mod- the modulator signal also plays an important role in the
ulator). Modulation can be found in a range of differ- characteristic of the RM signal. From this, we achieve
ent sound effects and synthesis techniques and some of the following important result:
these effects occur naturally and help us to identify cer-
tain types of sound; for instance the commonly found per-
formance styles of tremolo (modulation of amplitude) and When the frequency of M is in the audible range, that
vibrato (modulation of frequency) that are used in many is, 20 Hz or more, there is an effect on the timbre of the
stringed instruments are examples of this. Modulation is signal. The variations in amplitude become fast enough
typical in synthesis because it enriches the character of that the modulator generates a set of frequency sidebands.
the sound and also adds to the variance in timbre / char- With two sine waves as carrier and modulator, RM will
acter over time which is so often found in nature. generate a frequency spectrum containing two sidebands,
which are the sum and difference of the carrier and mod-
ulator frequencies. When this occurs, the actual carrier
frequency is removed from the spectrum, leaving two
harmonic sidebands (if the frequency of C and M are an
integer ratio to one another) or two inharmonic sidebands
(if the ratio is otherwise). For instance, if the carrier is
900 Hz and the modulator is 500 Hz, we will get two side-
bands; one at 400 Hz (900 - 500) and one at 1400 Hz (900
+ 500).
Figure 8.1 Unipolar (between 0 and 1) and Bipolar (between
−1 and +1) waveforms. If C and M are not sine waves (i.e. their waveforms are
more complex) then the resultant signal will contain more
than one or many different sidebands at different frequen-
In the two basic methods of modulation synthesis that cies and amplitudes, indicating a more complex sound.
occur, ring modulation and amplitude modulation, there Figure 8.2 illustrates two examples of ring modulation -
are two unique types of signal that occur in each method: the original example with frequencies C = 900 and M =
bipolar and unipolar signals. A bipolar signal is the type 500 but also when C = 400 and M = 1000, which intro-
of signal we have been examining in previous chapters, duces negative frequencies into the spectrum. This results
it has both a negative and positive amplitude and the in a “wrapping” phenomenon where the difference side-
waveform generally “rests” around zero in a time-domain band of C and M is −600 Hz! As a result, we find that a
plot. A unipolar signal is a bipolar signal that has been difference sideband occurs at 600 Hz, and that is true for
constant-shifted, that is, a constant value added to the any negative frequency; a sideband will occur at its the
overall signal to shift it into a range above zero, typically unsigned (positive) frequency.
between 0 and 1. The reason for these two different types
of signal follows.
3 Amplitude Modulation
2 Ring Modulation Amplitude modulation is similar to ring modulation, ex-
cept it works with a unipolar modulator. The ampli-
Ring modulation is the multiplication of two bipolar audio tude of the carrier signal, C, is modulated by the unipolar
signals by each other. Each value of a carrier signal, C, modulator M. At infrasonic (below 20hz) frequencies, the
is multiplied by a modulator signal, M, to create a new modulator serves to attenuate or boost the amplitude of
ring-modulated signal, R: the signal. A simple example of this would be a typical
ADSR envelope, which scales the amplitude of the car-
R(t) = C(t) × M (t) rier signal over time from 0 to 1 and back down again.

1
2 3 AMPLITUDE MODULATION

such as a square wave oscillator can create a wealth of

sidebands from a minimum of control parameters and
computation. Control over these generated partials may
not, however, be as detailed and straightforward as tech-
niques such as additive synthesis. As a result, we find that
AM and RM is used more often in signal processing than
signal generation.

Figure 8.2 Frequency-domain spectra of ring modulated

signals. a) a C frequency of 900 and M of 500 and b) a C
frequency of 400 and M of 1000, showing the emergence of
negative frequencies into the audible spectrum.

However, for synthesis techniques we generally consider

the effect that periodic modulator signals above 20 Hz
have on a carrier. Once again, the mathematical form is
simply the product of two signals:

A(t) = C(t) × M (t)

Where C is the carrier signal and M is a unipolar mod-

ulator, typically set to vary between values of 0 and 1.
Without mention of the unipolar modulator, this tech-
nique would appear to be identical to ring modulation.
Like ring modulation, amplitude modulation produces a
pair of sidebands for every sinusoidal component in the
carrier and modulator, and these sidebands are generated
at frequencies the sum and difference of the two signal
frequencies. The difference between the two techniques
is highlighted here:

Figure 8.4 A time-domain plot of an amplitude-modulated

signal. M(t), the sinusoidal 10hz modulator signal, C(t) the
sinusoidal 220 Hz carrier signal, and A(t) the two combined
using amplitude modulation.

Expanding on amplitude modulation requires us to in-

troduce more parameters and elements to the technique
to give it some “weight” with other, more popular tech-
niques. For instance, we can introduce into the system a
unipolar low-frequency oscillator which is set to control
the amplitude of the modulator; by changing the ampli-
tude of the modulator we are modifying what is known as
the modulation index; a factor which controls the strength
of the AM sidebands. In addition to modifying the ampli-
tude of the modulator, we can also modify the frequency
Figure 8.3 The frequency-domain spectrum of an of the modulator. As you may expect, this causes a shift
amplitude-modulated signal. The two sidebands are sum and in the frequencies of the sidebands generated through the
difference frequencies of the carrier and modulator, C and M, AM process and can, carefully controlled, produce some
and have amplitudes at half the amplitude of the carrier signal. interesting, dynamic sounds that are hard to produce with
other techniques. Breaking away from sinusoidal oscil-
lators in both cases of carrier and modulator, and even
One of the advantages of AM, like its cousin, RM, is that the modulation of the modulation index is one of the first
using just two signals or oscillators, we can create some steps to exploring this technique; try experimenting with
partially rich signals. Using a harmonically dense signal the waveshapes introduced in the previous chapters.
 3

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