On: Why does an A note sound different across instruments?

[11thEarlOfMar]

And this is why we can synthesize different instruments electronically. Reproduce the overtone patterns and you hear the same instrument.

Not to mention, two different pianos or two different violins can sound very different.

[loganhood → 11thEarlOfMar]

The sustained overtones are only half the battle. Getting the attack correct (the sound profile of the first ~10 milliseconds) is really important for differentiating instruments. Plucking a guitar string and hammering a piano string have very different attack characteristics. A flute has a distinctively "breathy" attack.

Many synthesizers use a sampled recording of the actual instrument for the attack, then synthesize the sustained portion of the instrument.

[whiddershins → loganhood]

> The sustained overtones are only half the battle.

Actually probably like 10% at most of the battle. My understanding is attack is overwhelmingly dominant in our perception of timbre.

[dwd → loganhood]

This takes me back to when I played around with sound using the C64 midi. There were four attributes that you could adjust to try and emmulate the timbre of a particular instrument: attack, delay, sustain & release.

Was a lot of fun when I was young.