pctechguide.com

  • Home
  • Guides
  • Tutorials
  • Articles
  • Reviews
  • Glossary
  • Contact

Frequency Modulation

The first widespread technology to be used in sound cards was Frequency Modulation, or FM, which was developed in the early 1970s by Dr John Chowning of Stanford University. FM synthesisers produce sound by generating a pure sine wave, known as a carrier, and mix it with a second waveform, known as a modulator. When the two waveforms are close in frequency, a complex waveform is produced. By controlling both the carrier and the modulator its possible to create different timbres, or instruments.

Each FM voice requires a minimum of two signal generators, commonly referred to as operators. Different FM synthesis implementations have varying degrees of control over the operator parameters. Sophisticated FM systems may use 4 or 6 operators per voice, and the operators may have adjustable envelopes which allow adjustment of the attack and decay rates of the signal.

Yamaha was the first company to research and invest in Chowning’s theory, which led to the development of the legendary DX7 synthesiser. Yamaha soon realised that mixing a wider range of carriers and modulators made it possible to create more complex timbres, resulting in more realistic sounding instruments. Their OPL3 synthesiser hardware is the de facto standard for games cards, and uses parameters downloaded from the driver software to control cascaded FM oscillators to generate a crude analogue of acoustic and electronic musical instruments.

Although FM systems were implemented in the analogue domain on early synthesiser keyboards, more recent FM synthesis implementations are done digitally. FM synthesis techniques are very useful for creating expressive new synthesised sounds. However, if the goal of the synthesis system is to recreate the sound of some existing instrument, this can generally be done more accurately with digital sample-based techniques, such as WaveTable Synthesis.

  • How Do Computers Make Pictures?
  • Graphic Card Resolution
  • Graphic Card Colour Depth
  • Graphic Card Components
  • Graphic Card Memory
  • Graphic Card Driver Software
  • 3d Accelerated Graphic Cards
  • Graphic Card Geometry
  • 3D Rendering
  • FSAA Graphic Card Technology
  • Digital Graphic Cards
  • DVI Graphic Cards
  • HDCP Technology
  • Graphic Card HDMI Ports
  • Graphic Card Display Port
  • Unified Display Special Interest Group
  • DirectX
  • OpenGL technology
  • Direct3D
  • Talisman
  • Fahrenheit Graphic Cards
  • SLI Technology
  • CrossFire Graphic Cards

Filed Under: Sound Cards

Latest Articles

Hard Drive Connection

Having reconfigured the drives as required, they may now be mounted into the appropriate drive bays. In fact, the best arrangement was to move the existing drive up a bay - so as to maintain maximum air circulation and to swap the old hard drive's power supply socket with that of the CD-ROM … [Read More...]

How to Remove PC Optimizer Pro

PC Optimizer Pro is one of the biggest examples of duping people on the Internet. It is billed a as a free registry cleaner that is advertised with other free downloads. When it gets installed, it will alert you (falsely) with the claim that your computer is infected with all kinds of bugs. Then … [Read More...]

Search Google Drive with Cortana

Windows 10’s Cortana is billed as the next generation of digital assistants, bringing a whole suite of capabilities to the fore in an attempt to upstage Apple’s Siri and Google Now. The latest is the extension of Cortana’s assistance to non-Microsoft services like Dropbox and Google Drive. The … [Read More...]

Best Laptops for Professional Writers in 2023

If you need a new laptop as a writer, you may find yourself bewildered by all the choices. For one thing, there are so many brands to choose from. … [Read More...]

What You Need to Know About Automation with Chrome

Automation is drastically changing the way we interact with the Internet. One survey found that 76% of businesses use automation to streamline … [Read More...]

9 Steps to Take When Building a Web Scraper in Python

Web scraping is a method for collecting, organizing and analyzing information that is spread over the Internet in a disorganized way. It can … [Read More...]

8 Steps To Streamline Your Business Operations with Virtual Data Rooms

With the increased reliance on networking and cloud computing, businesses generate and store an ever-increasing amount of sensitive information. As a … [Read More...]

Advantages and disadvantages of using Perl in web programming

Web pages are designed using programming codes and a number of technologies as tools to achieve the desired objectives. An example of the above … [Read More...]

Why Cross-Chain Trading Is the Future of Crypto Investing?

The rapid growth and evolution of the cryptocurrency market have opened up exciting opportunities for investors. Within this dynamic landscape, … [Read More...]

Guides

  • Computer Communications
  • Mobile Computing
  • PC Components
  • PC Data Storage
  • PC Input-Output
  • PC Multimedia
  • Processors (CPUs)

Recent Posts

VCR to DVD Conversion – Video Capture Cards and PC Hardware

There are a number of important hardware factors when transferring your VCR to digital video. For most people a balance needs to be struck when … [Read More...]

LP to CD Recording

Software to facilitate the digitalisation of analogue music is increasingly widely available. The Windows Sound Recorder is not suitable, since it … [Read More...]

How to Remove Windows Private Shield

Windows Private Shield Windows Private Shield is part of a multi rogue malware set. It goes by several different names. The purpose of this kind of … [Read More...]

[footer_backtotop]

Copyright © 2023 About | Privacy | Contact Information | Wrtie For Us | Disclaimer | Copyright License | Authors