CSD 311 – Complex Tones

These flashcards cover key concepts from the lecture on Complex Tones, including the nature of complex waves, the role of sine waves, and analysis methods like Fourier Transforms.

What defines a complex wave?

Any wave that is not a sine wave.

What is the relationship between sine waves and complex waves?

Complex waves are made up of multiple sine waves that can differ in amplitude, frequency, and/or phase.

How does adding more sine waves affect a complex wave?

It changes the shape of the complex wave while maintaining the fundamental frequency.

What is the Fourier Theorem?

Any continuous periodic waveform may be expressed as a sum of a series of sine and cosine waves.

What does a Fourier Transform do?

It transforms a signal from the time domain into the frequency domain.

What happens when two waves of the same amplitude and frequency are in phase?

The resulting wave has twice the amplitude of each component.

What occurs when two waves are 180º out of phase?

They cancel each other, resulting in a flat signal.

How is the amplitude spectrum related to complex waves?

It represents the different amplitude values of individual sine wave components of the complex wave.

What is a spectrogram?

A 3-dimensional representation of complex signals with time, frequency, and amplitude.

What are periodic signals?

Waves that repeat themselves at regular intervals.

What defines a harmonic relationship in a complex wave?

The frequencies of the sine waves must be integral multiples of the fundamental frequency.

What is a quasiperiodic wave?

Waves that are very similar from cycle-to-cycle but do not have identical shapes in every cycle.