Experimental parametric audio format based on real-time additive synthesis. [!NOTE] CHTN is an experimental research project. The format, container structure and DSP engine may change between versions while the project evolves.
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- 🇬🇧 English (this file)
- 🇪🇸 Español
CHTN (ChipTune) is an experimental audio format based on real-time additive synthesis.
Unlike traditional codecs such as MP3, AAC or FLAC, CHTN does not primarily store compressed audio samples. Instead, it stores a compact parametric description of the sound that is reconstructed during playback by a lightweight DSP engine.
The project includes:
- 🎵 CHTN Studio
- ⚙️ Encoder
- 🔊 Decoder
- 🧠 Real-time DSP engine
- 🎚 Dynamic oscillator allocation
- 📊 Audio visualizers
- 📦 CHTN container format
Original Audio
│
▼
Spectral Analysis
│
▼
Oscillator + Noise Parameters
│
▼
CHTN Container
│
▼
Real-Time DSP Engine
│
▼
Reconstructed Audio
Instead of storing every individual audio sample, CHTN stores the information required to synthesize the sound in real time.
- Real-time additive synthesis
- Dynamic oscillator allocation
- Parametric audio representation
- Multi-threaded playback
- Noise synthesis
- Stereo support
- Audio visualizers
- Adaptive compression
- Backward-compatible container revisions
- Experimental DSP architecture
Current version:
CHTN Studio v31
Current capabilities:
-
Real-time playback
-
Audio encoding
-
Audio decoding
-
CHTN Studio GUI
-
Dynamic oscillator engine
-
Compatible with:
-
MP3
-
WAV
-
FLAC
-
OGG
-
M4A
Most audio formats ask:
"How can audio samples be compressed more efficiently?"
CHTN asks a different question:
"How can the sound itself be described mathematically and reconstructed later?"
The objective of this project is not to replace existing codecs, but to explore an alternative approach to digital audio representation through parametric synthesis.
CHTN does NOT use a fixed bitrate.
File size depends on the spectral complexity of the source material.
Typical behavior:
| Audio | Typical Compression |
|---|---|
| Speech | Excellent |
| Chiptune | Excellent |
| Piano | Very Good |
| Orchestra | Good |
| Rock / Metal | Moderate |
| White Noise | Poor |
This project is released under a non-commercial attribution license.
You may:
- Use
- Study
- Modify
- Share
You must:
- Credit the original author.
Commercial use requires explicit permission from the author.
David Hernández (Capybla) Parts of the code are ai generated by gemini as I don't really know how to code but love silly projects nonetheless GitHub:
CHTN is an independent experimental research project focused on additive synthesis, DSP and alternative audio representation.