[sdiy] Additive Synthesis questions

[Ian Smith]

Hey all,

This is more of a hypothetical sort of thing at the moment since I'm working on a couple big projects at the moment. Anyway, I was reading Cheater's thing on stretched harmonics, and I was wondering about additive synthesis.

I think my biggest question is: Is there a noticable difference between adding up a bunch of sine waves and sculpting a waveform with a, my mind fails me on the name, but a quickly sequenced series of voltages fed through a D/A converter or R/2R ladder?

If I was going to make an analogue additive synthesizer, is there a simple way of building a sine wave oscillator with just a few parts that aren't some expensive special function chips?

What would be a good number of sine waves for analogue additive synthesis? 4, 7, as many as can be crammed on a panel?

thanks all,

Ian (always bloody curious) Smith
 		 	   		  
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