Additive Synthesis

Additive synthesis is the creation of sounds by the addition of sine waves. All sound waves, however complex, can be described as the sum of a series of sinusoidal waves. In equation form, this looks like:

y = Asin(2pi*f1n/R + w1) + Bsin(2pi *f2n/R + w2) + ...

where A,B,C,etc. are the amplitudes of each component; f1,f2,etc. are the frequencies of each component; and w1,w2,w3,etc. are the phase shifts of each component.

Trying to imitate an acoustic sound using additive synthesis would require a very complicated equation.