Additive Synthesis Pros and Cons

Pros

Additive synthesis provides the maximum flexibility in the types of sound that can be synthesized.

In certain cases, it can realize tones that are ``indistinguishable from real tones.''

Cons

It is often necessary to do signal analysis before using additive synthesis to produce specific sounds.

Often requires many oscillators to produce good quality sounds--computationally demanding!

Attacks difficult.

Many functions are useful only for a limited range of pitch and loudness, e.g.:

• the timbre of a piano played at A4 is different from one played at A2;
• the timbre of a trumpet played loudly is quite different from one played softly at the same pitch.