Spline Based Sound Engine

[Mark D.]

No immediate questions from me. But this is a fascinating idea you have.

[Graal]

Nice!
Patent it! Quickly! Who knows, you might be famous in the future!

Cheers!

[Sptz]

Dude, patent that shit. seriously before someone else does!

I would do some research on interpolation filters because I think some digital audio engines already do this to some degree, but I'm not sure. But the render options in FL Studio and Reaper for example, sound like interpolation techniques and it seems like that's what you are describing if I understand you correctly.

[nucelar]

Hi,
Interesting, but I cannot undestand the usefulness of that concept, although it is interesting. I'm playing the devil's advocate, but don't take it as critizism, I encourage your enthusiasm,I'm testing you
Soooo.. questions:
Is this method intended for recording or just synthesis?

So basically you are making an analogy with Corel Draw (vector) and MS Paint (bitmap) applied to audio.
With vector drawing you can make beautiful and precise geometrical shapes (like splines) described mathematically and at the end you can render a bitmap at the resolution you want. The advantages are clear in the graphic world. But how do you represent photorealistic images with vectors? It is nearly impossible.

In digital audio, everything ends up at a D/A converter, and these work with PCM at very specific sample rates. It has no advantage to me working in vector-based audio when at the end you must convert to PCM anyway.
Furthermore, you must describe methods of processing vector-based audio. How do you perform a simple gain without affecting the wave shape?
How do you mix two signals? In PCM you multiply and sum (very simple)
How about a simple filter. In PCM you have fir-iir filters. What would be the equivalent? (Not to mention more complex things like dynamics or reverb..)
Are these splines supposed to be sine waves? I'm not sure of that...
Cheers! And keep on investigating!

[Xperienced]

Very creative, but useless idea. Sorry.

PCM signals are already infinite resolution, and the angle/tension thing is the same as playing with harmonics and their phase. Of course this is used in synthesis, it's a pretty old trick (as old as synthesis itself) but there are far easier ways to do it. If you pay attention, you might notice that the huge file sizes you're getting are because the bits taken by the angle/tension information are the same bits that a PCM signal at a high enough sample rate to represent the highest harmonic in the spline would take. Or something like that. It's 5:30 in the morning and I didn't sleep (thank you GS!).

Actually unless I'm missing something, your "Fig g" is an exact illustration of how PCM works. Hey, looks like you just found a neat way to illustrate why PCM signals are lossless! Cool! (And "Fig d" would be more or less, if taken to a different context, an illustration of why inter-sample peaking occurs)