Electronic pianos and inharmonicity

[Kent Swafford]

JIMRPT@aol.com wrote:

>If a piano from which samples are taken has "inharmonicity" would/will not 
>the 'sampled' sounds also include this inherent inharmonicity?

Yes.

>I am not sure of the loops on the 
>scope that Kent speaks of but if they are edited in such a manner as to 
>minimize the "inharmonicity" does this not change the character of the 
>samples?

The inharmonicity is neither minimized nor changed. By "loop" points, one 
simply means start and stop points within the sample are chosen in order 
for a portion of the sample to be played over and over again. The looping 
(that is, the stopping and starting over of a portion of the sample) is 
fast enough and accurate enough in terms of the wave form that it cannot 
be heard.

>Robert Scott wrote:
>
>> If the sampled sound is repeated, even
>>once, then the phase of all the partials would have to be the same at the
>>beginning and at the end of one sample period.  If not, then the
>>discontinuity would be clearly heard as a "click" at the transition
>>point.  Therefore I have to conclude that electronic pianos either do
>>not model inharmonicity or else they do not recycle samples.

They do have inharmonicity and they do loop samples. It's just that 
choosing the loop points to avoid clicking is easily facilitated with a 
computer; it's not quite as difficult as the quote suggests.

Kent