Band-Limited Sound Synthesis

This describes band-limited sound synthesis, why it's necessary, and an efficient implementation for simple waveforms like a square wave. It has been used in several video game console sound chip emulators. These clips demonstrate the sound quality:

• Zelda: Oracle of Ages on Nintendo Game Boy emulator
• Defenders of Oasis on Sega Master System emulator
• Blaster Master on Nintendo NES emulator
• More samples generated using algorithm

Contents

1. Sampling a Waveform
2. Square Wave
3. The Nyquist Limit
4. Square Wave Harmonics
5. Band-Limited Synthesis
6. Band-Limited Step
7. Adding Band-Limited Steps
8. First Difference
9. Adding Differences
10. Adding Band-Limited Step Differences
11. Implementation
12. Linear Interpolation Compared

References to digital signal processing material and source code

bandlimited.zip contains a simple C++ implementation of algorithm