The representation of a PERIODIC sound or WAVEFORM as a sum of Fourier components (i.e. pure SINUSOIDAL WAVEs). According to the FOURIER THEOREM, periodic sound may be shown to consist of SINE WAVEs ...

Almost two hundred years ago polymath Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier showed that any periodic function can be expressed as the sum of sine waves of different amplitudes and frequencies. A square wave, ...

The more general form of transferring the frequency domain to the time domain is termed the inverse Fourier transform. See: COMPLEX TONE, FOURIER THEOREM, HARMONIC SERIES, SINE WAVE. Compare: GRANULAR ...