Yamaha XG pitch bend specs

>Then again, I suppose this to be a problem with just about any
>commercial sample-playback device. Can anyone confirm my suspicion
>that a synth that is actually a synth, synthesizing it's own waveforms
>(i.e., FM, PM, Additive, etc.) is much more reliable at delivering
>more stable/precise pitches.
>
Not necessarily. Most synthesized waveforms in commercial synthesizers are
still based upon the phase accumulator oscillator just like sample playback
machines. A waveform is read from a table and the phase increment adjusted
to change pitch. It is the fractional part of the phase accumulator that
determines the pitch resolution. It's a matter of how the oscillators are
implemented, and the current crop of of pseudo-analog synthesis really don't
provide any details on this. Certainly the older Yamaha FM, Casio PM and
Kawai Additive synths have similar pitch limitations to the sample playback
machines.

John Loffink
jloffink@pdq.net