this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2025
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[–] autriyo@feddit.org 3 points 3 hours ago

In theory an infinite amount of different waveforms. But practically speaking, no one would be able to distinguish them by ear, and even oscilloscopes have limited resolution.

Music is super complex and can't even be described by a single or a few waveforms, unless it's very simple. Another simplified way to explain all the sounds of music fitting on one "waveform" is to imagine the high frequency stuff happening in between the low frequency stuff. And usually the different instruments and voices don't happen all at once, they happen slightly one after another, or in sync but intentionally so they affect each other the "right" way. Whatever the "right" way is...