Download Dynamic Stochastic Wavetable Synthesis
Dynamic Stochastic Synthesis (DSS) is a direct digital synthesis method invented by composer Iannis Xenakis and notably employed in his 1991 composition GENDY3. In its original conception, DSS generates periodic waves by linear interpolation between a set of breakpoints in amplitude–time space. The breakpoints change position each period, displaced by random walks via high-level parameters that induce various behaviors and timbres along the pitch–noise continuum. The following paper proposes Dynamic Stochastic Wavetable Synthesis as a modification and generalization of DSS that enables its application to table-lookup oscillators, allowing arbitrary sample data to become the basis of a DSS process. We describe the considerations affecting the development of such an algorithm and offer a real-time implementation informed by the analysis.