| Wavetable synthesis | |
| Given that pitch is a common characteristic in musical sound an efficient way to generate a sound is to create a digital oscillator which simply repeats a waveform at some amplitude and frequency and for some duration. |
| This method gains its efficiency by virtue of its use of a lookup table which avoids complex calculations for each sample. | Using this method, when a new sample is needed for output, a table containing a set of numerical values representing one period of a waveform is searched to find the closest value corresponding to the phase needed. | Interpolation between adjacent data points can achieve greater precision. |
| While this technique offers computational efficiency it suffers from a lack of timbral development. | Use of an amplitude envelope, filter, and low frequency modulation, techniques borrowed from subtractive synthesis, can help add variation to the timbre. |