

Karplus-Strong Guitar Synthesizer - ajkirwin
http://lab.andre-michelle.com/karplus-strong-guitar

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fhars
Readers in the US should be aware that by running this piece of software they
are violating a patent that might still be valid.

Karplus-Strong is a really interesting example for the effect of software
patents. It is a very efficient and powerful algorithm (3 voice polyphony on a
Z80), but it has never been used in any successful instrument. IIRC only one
commercial synthesizer manufacturer licensed the patent, but only as a
defnsive measure without actually using it in a product. Just imagine all the
musuc that might have been without this patent.

~~~
10ren
One effect of software patents is for people to say "wow that's a great idea!
how can we invent around it?" In the prospecting theory, if one guy finds a
gold mine, other people try digging around his "claims". But I don't know if
that actually happened here.

PS: the patents, from 1986 and 87 would have expired by now - they're linked
from the bottom of the wiki entry: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karplus-
Strong_string_synthesis>

BTW: I remember physical simulation synthesisers were available roughly 20
years ago (I don't know if they took off or not - one had a saxophone
mouthpiece, and it sounded unbelievably realistic). There's usually more than
one way to do it.

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ajkirwin
A really interesting piece of audio software engineering. An incredible
sounding guitar synthesizer!

