Physically inspired synthesis of Santoor and Sarod

Although, Sarod and Santoor are predominantly used musical instruments in the culture of North Indian Classical Music (NICM), insignificant number of research are reported in the context of synthesis. Some of the most efficient and effective existing techniques of music synthesis such as subtractive synthesis, wavetable synthesis and frequency modulation synthesis are incapable of successfully capturing the triggering excitation mechanism associated with Santoor and the reverberation effect inherited with Sarod. In this paper, a novel approach for synthesis of Santoor and Sarod is proposed, implemented and validated. The proposed model intertwines the harmonic content, the parameterized envelop together with the mathematically modelled excitation mechanism. The salient feature of the Santoor´s triggering timbre has been obtained by mathematically modelling the bouncing effect using delaying time sampling combined with the variable damping. The polyphonic timbre of Sarod due the resonance of sympathetic strings has been parametrically modelled by using the Exponentially Modified Gaussian distribution (EMG). The synthesized signals were validated by comparing with real instruments using standard quantifiers of acoustical properties such as Zero Crossing Rate, Root Mean Square Energy, Spectrum Centroid and Spectrogram. The results shows that the validation parameters of the synthesized waveforms are closely agrees with that of real instruments. Since this technique can be employed in constructing waveforms for the musical notes when the fundamental frequency and the associated duration are available, it can be used to synthesis any given series of musical notes pertaining to a raga or a light classic.