Synthetic route to a sound sample

Hi, Everyone!

I come from the field of organic chemistry where we synthesize complex
molecules found in nature from simple ones. That is why I got
interested in sound synthesis: an attempt to synthesize natural sounds
from simple oscillators and waveforms. In organic chemistry we identify
molecular structure of a substance and then attempt to build that
entity from simple molecules. In sound synthesis we also can identify
the 'ingredients' of the sound in spectrogram, i.e. the sine waves of
different frequencies and their amplitudes. However, I am not sure how
I can then 'build' the analyzed sound from the simple waveforms. It
appears to me that modern DJs and composers are akin to alchemists:
they make sounds for themselves but do not want to present the original
'synthetic route' to the sound. I have sampled a sound of interest to
me and now I am trying to synthesize it from simple oscillators. The
rhythm can be found at www.geocities.com/simondex/Sample.wav. If anyone
can help me do it I would really appreciate it.

Thank You Very Much. 

Truly Yours, Simon Dexter.

simon...@yahoo.com skrev:
> Hi, Everyone!
>
> I come from the field of organic chemistry where we synthesize complex
> molecules found in nature from simple ones. That is why I got
> interested in sound synthesis: an attempt to synthesize natural sounds
> from simple oscillators and waveforms. In organic chemistry we identify
> molecular structure of a substance and then attempt to build that
> entity from simple molecules. In sound synthesis we also can identify
> the 'ingredients' of the sound in spectrogram, i.e. the sine waves of
> different frequencies and their amplitudes. However, I am not sure how
> I can then 'build' the analyzed sound from the simple waveforms. It
> appears to me that modern DJs and composers are akin to alchemists:
> they make sounds for themselves but do not want to present the original
> 'synthetic route' to the sound. I have sampled a sound of interest to
> me and now I am trying to synthesize it from simple oscillators. The
> rhythm can be found at www.geocities.com/simondex/Sample.wav. If anyone
> can help me do it I would really appreciate it.

You are obviously aware about Fourier theory, about how to
synthesize any waveform from a set of sinusoidals.

You are doing this for synthesizing rythms, without using the
sampled sound at all? It could be difficult, because the human
auditory system plays an integral part of anything having to do
with audio and music.

I would not be surprised (I am just a layman what auditory
acoustics is concerned) if some of the rythms and beats people
find "enchanting" play with some sensation of stress associated
with a thumping heart.

The most extreme example I know of, is the song "connected" by
the Stereo MC's, that was very popular in Europe in the early
1990ies. The song has little melody, is repetitive enough to
be very boring, but it just catches on to you and holds it grip.
Why? Because of that bass and those drums that mimic a beating
heart.

My point is that if you want to synthesize some catchy rythm,
it might take a little bit more than getting the beats timed
and at the right amplitude. There may be very subtle details
that gives that "umpfh" to the original.

So you might be right. The people who do these things well,
may be compared to alchymists. I don't think they have any
form of recipes for what they do. Whoever had a working recipe
would make obscene amounts of money in some record company.

Or as a composer for commercials.

Rune