Meet additive synthesis, the third great approach alongside subtractive and FM, where every sound is built by stacking pure sine waves like a tuning fork choir.
In the world
Strike a tuning fork: it hums at nearly a single frequency, the purest sound a physical object can make.
Every sound you have ever heard is, at heart, a pattern of air pressure. Any such pattern, no matter how complex, can be built by adding together pure sine waves, the simplest possible oscillation.
This is additive synthesis: start with silence, add sines, build a sound. Subtractive synthesis carves tone from a rich source; additive synthesis is the third way, assembling tone one harmonic at a time.
Did you know?
The human ear can distinguish about 340,000 different tones. Every single one of them can be built from sine waves - the same simple curve you see in the neon trail on the right.
Explore
Move your cursor across the 3D scene: the neon trail follows you, and its pitch changes with your vertical position. The four orbiting planets represent different wave shapes - click one to switch the sound. Unmute to hear it.