Sound additive synthesis - any harmonic amplitudes

Question

I have working solution of music synthesis written in C#. Now I am facing problem if implementing another instruments based on collection of amplitude spectra. I have found this web, where can I see all harmonical parts (1-10) http://elektronicka-hudba.telotone.cz/clanky/metody-zvukove-syntezy/ for piano, voice, tube, violin, but I would like to add more different musical instruments, e.g. drums, guitar and so on. I have run through hundreds of pages on the internet, but no success. Do you know harmonic amlitudes of any other musical instrument?

Edit:

Nobody knows any harmonics (amplitude spectrum 1-10) for musical instruments?

Thanks a lot

Hmyzak

Answer 1

One of the most important aspects of a musical instrument's timber is how the strengths of the partial components change over time. They also change depending on the amplitude of the note and other factors. In other words, there is no simple relationship between the amplitude of the partials. I didn't read the link you sent (although I glossed over some of it translated in English), but I believe that is intended only as very rough examples of the notes at "steady state", ie once the so-called initial transient has passed.

Other factors come into play for instruments like voice, which is highly flexible (screaming, for example will produce more higher harmonics than light singing), and drums, which have "out-of-tune" partials and therefore can't be reproduced using your current model at all.

In other words, yes you might be able to find this information, but it's not going to sound like the human voice or a guitar and definitely not a drum.

If you insist on this method of synthesis, which is indeed a fun area to play with, you may have to do your own analysis for the instruments you are interested in. You can find sample libraries and analyse the notes yourself. You will also find some better information in books than in the internet. For example, I believe the science of sound has some graphs and so on which you could use to derive at least some of the information you are interested in.

You might also look into other books on the subject like Computer Music, a real classic. This will also give you some ideas for other modes of synthesis which might more faithfully reproduce the instruments you are interested in. You can get older editions of both these books for very cheap and I doubt you'd be missing much.