Efficient analysis/synthesis of percussion musical instrument sounds using an all-pole model

It is well-known that an impulse-excited, all-pole filter is capable of representing many physical phenomena, including the oscillatory modes of percussion musical instruments like woodblocks, xylophones, or chimes. In contrast to the more common application of all-pole models to speech, however, practical problems arise in music synthesis due to the location of poles very close to the unit circle. The objective of this work was to develop algorithms to find excitation and filter parameters for synthesis of percussion instrument sounds using only an inexpensive all-pole filter chip (TI TSP50C1x). The paper describes analysis methods for dealing with pole locations near the unit circle, as well as a general method for modeling the transient attack characteristics of a particular sound while independently controlling the amplitudes of each oscillatory mode.