L.

1 Arrays and sound 5

L.1 Arrays and sound

The purpose of this lab is to explore arrays in MATLAB and to use them to
construct sound signals. The lab is designed to help you become familiar with
the fundamentals of MATLAB. It is self-contained in the sense that no additional
documentation for MATLAB is needed. Instead, we rely on the online help
facilities. Some people, however, much prefer to sit down with a tutorial text
about a piece of software, rather than relying on online help. There are many
excellent books that introduce MATLAB. Check your local bookstore or The
MathWorks’ Web site (http://www.mathworks.com/).
Note that there is some potential confusion because MATLAB uses the term
“function” somewhat more loosely than we do when we refer to mathematical
functions. Any MATLAB command that takes arguments in parentheses is called
a function. And most have a well-defined domain and range, and do, in fact,
define a mapping from the domain to the range. These can be viewed formally
as a (mathematical) function. Some, however, such as plot and sound are a bit
harder to view this way. The last exercise here explores this relationship.

L.1.1 In-lab section

To run MATLAB simply double-click on the MATLAB icon on the desktop, or find
the MATLAB command in the start menu. This will open a MATLAB command
window, which displays a prompt “>>”. You type commands at the prompt. The
“>>” is the MATLAB prompt. You do not type that part. Explore the built-in demos
by typing demo.
MATLAB provides an online help system accessible by using the help
command. For example, to get information about the function size, enter the
following:
>> help size

There also is a help desk (formatted in HTML for viewing from a Web
browser) with useful introductory material. It is accessed from the Help menu.
If you have no prior experience with MATLAB, see the topic “Getting Started” in
the help desk. Spend some time with this. You can find in the help desk all the
information you need to carry out the following exercises.
1. A variable in MATLAB is an array. An array has dimensions N × M , where
N and M are in Naturals. N is the number of rows and M is the number of
columns. If N = M = 1, the variable is a scalar. If N = 1 and M > 1, then the
variable is a row vector. If N > 1 and M = 1, then the variable is a column
vector. If both N and M are greater than one, then the variable is a matrix,
and if N = M , then the variable is a square matrix. The coefficients of an
array are real or complex numbers.
(a) Each of the following is an assignment of a value to a variable called
array. For each, identify the dimensions of the array (M and N ), and
6 Laboratory Manual

identify whether the variable is a scalar, row vector, column vector, or

matrix.
array = [1 2 3 4 5]
array = [1:5]
array = 1:5
array = [1:1:5]
array = [1:-1:-5]
array = [1 2; 3 4]
array = [1; 2; 3; 4]
(b) Create a 2 × 3 matrix containing arbitrary data. Explore using the
MATLAB functions zeros, ones, eye, and rand to create the matrix.
Find a way to use the square matrix eye(2) as part of your 2 × 3 matrix.
Verify the sizes of your arrays using size.
(c) Use the MATLAB commands size and length to determine the length
of the arrays given by 1:0.3:10 and 1:1:-1. Consider more generally
the array constructor pattern
array = start : step : stop
where start, stop, and step are scalar variables or real numbers. How
many elements are there in array? Give an expression in MATLAB in
terms of the variables start, stop, and step. That is, we should be able
to do the following:
>> start = 1;
>> stop = 5;
>> step = 1;
>> array = start:step:stop;
and then evaluate your expression and have it equal length(array).
(Notice that the semicolons at the end of each command above sup-
press MATLAB’s response to each command.) Hint: To get a general
expression, you will need something like the floor function. Verify your
answer for the arrays 1:0.3:10 and 1:1:-1.
2. MATLAB can be used as a general-purpose programming language. Unlike a
general-purpose programming language, however, it has special features for
operating on arrays that make it especially convenient for modeling signals
and systems.
(a) In this exercise, we will use MATLAB to compute

25
!
k.
k=0

Use a for loop (try help for) to specify each individual addition in the
summation.
 L.1 Arrays and sound 7

(b) Use the sum function to give a more compact, one-line specification
of the sum in part (a). The difference between these two approaches
illustrates the difference between using MATLAB and using a more tra-
ditional programming language. The for loop is closer to the style one
would use with C++ or Java. The sum function illustrates what MATLAB
does best: compact operations on entire arrays.
(c) In MATLAB, any built-in function that operates on a scalar can also
operate on an array. For example,
>> sin(pi/4)

ans =

0.7071

>> sin([0 pi/4 pi/2 3*pi/4 pi])

ans =

0 0.7071 1.0000 0.7071 0.0000

This feature is called vectorization. Use vectorization to construct a
vector that tabulates the values of the sin function for the set {0, π/10,
2π/10, . . . , π}. Use the colon notation explored in the previous exercise.
(d) Given two arrays A and B that have the same dimensions, MATLAB can
multiply the elements pointwise using the .* operator. For example,
>> [1 2 3 4].*[1 2 3 4]

ans =

1 4 9 16
Use this pointwise multiply to tabulate the values of sin2 for the set

{0, π/10, 2π/10, . . . , π }.

3. A discrete-time signal may be approximated in MATLAB by a vector (either

a row or a column vector). In this exercise, you build a few such vectors and
plot them.
(a) Create an array that is a row vector of length 36, with zeros everywhere
except in the 18th position, which has value 1. (Hint: Try help zeros
to find a way to create a row vector with just zeros, and then assign the
18th element of this vector the value one.) This array approximates a
discrete-time impulse, which is a signal that is zero everywhere except
at one sample point. We will use impulses to study linear systems. Plot
the impulse signal, using both plot and stem. *

*A função STEM não existe no Scilab. Utilize a função PLOT2D3.

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(b) Sketch by hand the sine wave x : [−1, 1]→ Reals, given by

∀ t ∈ [−1, 1], x(t) = sin(2π × 5t + π/6).

In your sketch carefully plot the value at time 0. Assume the domain
represents time in seconds. What is the frequency of this sine wave in
Hertz and in radians per second, what is its period in seconds, and how
many complete cycles are there in the interval [−1, 1]?
(c) Sample the function x from the previous part at 8 kHz, and using
MATLAB, plot the samples for the entire interval [−1, 1]. How many
samples are there?
(d) Change the frequency of the sine wave from the previous section to 440
Hz and plot the signal for the interval [−1, 1]. Why is the plot hard to
read? Plot the samples that lie in the interval [0, 0.01] instead (this is a
10-msec interval).
(e) The MATLAB function sound (see help sound) with syntax
>> sound(sampledSignal, frequency)

sends the one-dimensional array or vector sampledSignal to the audio

card in your PC. The second argument specifies the sampling frequency
in Hertz. The values in sampledSignal are assumed to be real numbers
in the range [−1.0, 1.0]. Values outside this range are clipped to −1.0 or
1.0. Use this function to listen to the signal you created in the previous
part. Listen to both a 10-msec interval and 2-second interval. Describe
what you hear.
(f) Listen to
>> sound(0.5*sampledSignal,frequency)

and
>> sound(2*sampledSignal,frequency)

where sampledSignal is the signal you created in part (d) above. Ex-
plain in what way are these different from what you heard in the previous
part. Listen to
>> sound(sampledSignal,frequency/2)

and
>> sound(sampledSignal,frequency*2)

Explain how these are different.

L.1.2 Independent section

1. Use MATLAB to plot the following continuous-time functions f : [−0.1, 0.1]→
Reals:
 L.1 Arrays and sound 9

∀ t ∈ [−0.1, 0.1], f (t) = sin(2π × 100t)

∀ t ∈ [−0.1, 0.1], f (t) = exp(−10t) sin(2π × 100t)
∀ t ∈ [−0.1, 0.1], f (t) = exp(10t) sin(2π × 100t)

The first of these is a familiar sinusoidal signal. The second is a sinusoidal

signal with a decaying exponential envelope. The third is a sinusoidal signal
with a growing exponential envelope. Choose a sampling period so that the
plots closely resemble the continuous-time functions. Explain your choice
of the sampling period. Use subplot to plot all three functions in one tiled
figure. Include the figure in your lab report.
2. Use MATLAB to listen to a one-second sinusoidal waveform scaled by a
decaying exponential given by

∀ t ∈ [0, 1], f (t) = exp(−5t) sin(2π × 440t).

Use a sample rate of 8,000 samples/second. Describe how this sound is

different from sinusoidal sounds that you listened to in the in-lab section.
3. Construct a sound signal that consists of a sequence of half-second sinusoids
with exponentially decaying envelopes, as in the previous part, but with a
sequence of frequencies: 494, 440, 392, 440, 494, 494, and 494. Listen to
the sound. Can you identify the tune? In your lab report, give the MATLAB
commands that produce the sound.
4. This exercise explores the relationship between MATLAB functions and
mathematical functions.
(a) The sound function in MATLAB returns no value, as you can see from
the following:
>> x = sound(n)
??? Error using ==> sound
Too many output arguments.

Nonetheless, sound can be viewed as a function, with its range being

the set of sounds. Read the help information on the sound function
carefully and give a precise characterization of it as a mathematical func-
tion (define its domain and range). You may assume that the elements
of MATLAB vectors are members of the set Doubles, double-precision
floating-point numbers, and you may, for simplicity, consider only the
one-argument version of the function, and model only monophonic
(not stereo) sound.
(b) Give a similar characterization of the soundsc MATLAB function, again
considering only the one-argument version and monophonic sound.
(c) Give a similar characterization of the plot MATLAB function, consider-
ing the one-argument version with a vector argument.