Integrating complementary spectral models in the design of a musical synthesizer

Spectral based analysis/synthesis techniques offer powerful tools for the processing of sounds. They include many different approaches, each one with its own advantages and set of compromises. In the design of a general purpose synthesizer more than one technique is needed while maintaining a unified control strategy and a single synthesis engine. In this article we present several complementary spectral representations, techniques to obtain them or generate sound from them, and the design of a general purpose software synthesizer based on these techniques.