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Bradford Enhanced Synthesis Technology (BEST)

Bradford Enhanced Synthesis Technology is a digital real-time musical sound synthesis system, using additive synthesis techniques to create a powerful and flexible musical sound manipulation tool. (See What's new)

How it started : The Bradford Musical Instrument Simulator (BMIS) pioneered the use of digital real-time additive synthesis for research and for commercial electronic musical instruments. In the Simulator's role as an organ, the flexibility offered by additive synthesis made it possible to adapt the sound of the instrument to the requirements of the building in which it was located and to the detailed requirements of its purchasers. This "voicability" is a guiding principle of all Bradford technology design.

BMIS worked with single cycle waveforms in group additive synthesis representation.

What came next : The successor to BMIS is  Bradford Enhanced Synthesis Technology (BEST).

  • Sounds in BEST are built up from sinewave partials, not stored as recorded samples. The tonal quality of the sound is determined by the number and relative sizes of its partials. In BEST, each partial has its own independent amplitude and frequency attack envelopes which can be easily modified with a specially written graphical interface. This flexibility is particularly important when a sound needs to be suited to a particular acoustic environment. It is not sufficient to alter the tone control filters on a recording, you need to be able to control the detailed structure of the sound, the shape of its partials' envelopes, the number of its partials.

  • Synthesis has the tremendous advantage of being infinitely flexible, so it is ideal for producing high quality instrument sound, for combining with pipes, and for use in musical sound research.

  • BEST hardware is fast and efficient, and has a modular structure permitting the use of a large number of independent sound sources to provide high levels of ensemble in multi-instrument simulations and for organs of all sizes. The technology can drive pipes, so allowing for hybrid instruments combining pipes with synthesised sound, or providing transmission, capture and sequencing facilities for pipe-only instruments.

Principal technological features of BEST are:

  • A facility for specifying and playing complex multiple cycle waveforms, synthesised from individual partials with independently controllable amplitude and frequency envelopes which can change from cycle to cycle as required. The software for implementing this facility was completed as part of a Teaching Company Scheme. 
  • amplitude envelopes for single cycle waveforms implemented as a series of hardware-controlled ramps instead of a series of steps, greatly reducing unwanted noise during amplitude changes.
  • 16 bit waveform storage and output resolution and 24 bit waveform arithmetic resolution preserved over a 48dB range.
  • 8 output channels per sound module (64 in total) each with a sample output rate of 42.7Ksamples per second.
  • a comprehensive graphical user interface for specifying waveform characteristics.