MUS421/EE367B Lecture 2

Review of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT)

Julius O. Smith III (jos@ccrma.stanford.edu)

Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA)
Department of Music, Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305

April 10, 2007

Outline

• Domains of Definition
• Discrete Fourier Transform
• Properties of the Fourier Transform

For more details, see

• Mathematics of the DFT (Music 320 text):

http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/mdft/
• Appendices A-D of
Spectral Audio Signal Processing (our text):
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/sasp/

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 Domains of Definition

The Fourier Transform can be defined for signals that are

• Discrete or Continuous Time

• Finite or Infinite Duration

This results in four cases:

Time Duration
Finite Infinite
Fourier Series (FS) Fourier Transform (FT) cont.
Z P Z +∞
X(k) = x(t)e−jωk tdt X(ω) = x(t)e−jωtdt time
0 −∞
k = −∞, . . . , +∞ ω ∈ (−∞, +∞) t
Discrete FT (DFT) Discrete Time FT (DTFT) discr.
N
X −1 X+∞
X(k) = x(n)e−jωk n X(ω) = x(n)e−jωn time
n=0 n=−∞
k = 0, 1, . . . , N − 1 ω ∈ (−π, +π) n
discrete freq. k continuous freq. ω

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 Signal and Transform Notation

• n, k ∈ Z (integers) or ZN (integers modulo N )

• x(n) ∈ R (reals) or C (complex numbers)
• x ∈ CN means x is a length N complex sequence
• x = x(·)
• X = DFT(x) ∈ CN , or
x↔X
where “↔” is read as “corresponds to”.
• X(k) = DFTk (x) = DFTN,k (x) ∈ C
• x(n) = IDFTn(X) = IDFTN,n(X)
• For x ∈ C∞, X = DTFT(x) = DFT∞(x) ∈ C∞
2π

• x = conjugate of x
• ∠x = phase of x

The notation XY or X · Y denotes the vector containing

(XY )k = X(k)Y (k), k = 0, . . . , N − 1. This is denoted
by ‘X .* Y’ in Matlab, where X and Y may a pair of
column vectors, or a pair of row vectors.

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 The Discrete Fourier Transform

The “kth bin” of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT)

is defined as
N −1
∆ ∆ ∆
X
X(k) = DFTk (x) = hx, sk i = x(tn)e−jωk tn
n=0
∆
sk (n) = ejωk tn ; k = 0, 1, . . . , N − 1
∆ k 2πk ∆
ωk = 2π fs = ; tn = nT
N NT
We may interpret the DFT as the coefficients of
projection of the signal vector x onto the N sinusoidal
basis signals sk , k = 0, 1, . . . , N − 1:
X(k) = hx, sk i

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 Inverse DFT

The inverse DFT is given by

N −1 N −1
X hx, sk i 1 X jωk tn
x(tn) = s k (tn ) = X(ωk )e
k=0
k s k k2 N
k=0

It can be interpreted as the superposition of the

projections, i.e., the sum of the sinusoidal basis signals
weighted by their respective coefficients of projection:
X hx, sk i
x= 2 sk
k
k sk k

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 The DFT, Cont’d

There are several ways to think about the DFT:

1. Sampled uniform filter bank output

2. Projection onto the set of “basis” sinusoids
(frequencies at N roots of unity)
3. Coordinate transformation (“natural” RN basis to
“sinusoidal” basis)
4. Matrix multiplication X = W∗x,
where W∗[k, n] = e−jωk tn

This course will emphasize the first two.

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 Properties of the DFT

We are going to be performing manipulations on signals

and their Fourier Transform throughout this class. It is
important to understand how changes we make in one
domain affect the other domain. The Fourier theorems
are helpful for this purpose.
Derivations of the Fourier theorems for the DTFT case
may be found in Appendix D1 of the text, and in
Mathematics of the DFT2 (Music 320 text) for the
DFT case.

1
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/sasp/Fourier_Theorems_DTFT.html
2
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/mdft/Fourier_Theorems.html

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 Linearity

αx1 + βx2 ↔ αX1 + βX2

or
DFT(αx1 + βx2) = α · DFT(x1) + β · DFT(x2)
α, β ∈ C
x1, x2, X1, X2 ∈ CN

The Fourier Transform “commutes with mixing.”

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 Time Reversal

Definition:
∆ ∆
Flipn(x) = x(−n) = x(N − n)
∆
Note: x(n) = x(n mod N ) for signals in CN (DFT
case).
When computing a sampled DTFT using the DFT, we
interpret time indices n = 1, 2, . . . , N/2 − 1 as positive
time indices, and n = N − 1, N − 2, . . . , N/2 as the
negative time indices n = −1, −2, . . . , −N/2. Under
this interpretation, the Flip operator simply reverses a
signal in time.
Fourier theorems:
Flip(x) ↔ X
for x ∈ CN . In the typical special case of real signals
(x ∈ RN ),
Flip(x) ↔ X
Thus, time-reversing a signal conjugates its spectrum.

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 Symmetry

The Fourier transform of real signals exhibits special

symmetry which is important to us in many cases.
Basically,
Real ↔ Hermitian
The Fourier transform of a real signal x is therefore

• Conjugate Symmetric (Hermitian symmetric)

X(−k) = X(k)
• Real part Symmetric (even)

re {X(−k)} = re {X(k)}
• Imaginary part Antisymmetric (skew-symmetric, odd)

im {X(−k)} = −im {X(k)}

• Magnitude Symmetric (even)

|X(−k)| = |X(k)|
• Phase Antisymmetric (odd)

∠X(−k) = −∠X(k)

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 Shift Theorem

∆
The Shift operator is defined as Shiftl,n(y) = y(n − l).
Since indexing is defined modulo N , Shiftl (y) is a
circular right-shift by l samples.
Shiftl (y) ↔ e−j(·)l Y
or, more loosely,
y(n − l) ↔ e−jωl Y (ω)
i.e.,
−jωk l


DFTk [Shiftl (y)] = e Y (ωk )
e−jωk l = Linear Phase Term, slope = −l

• ∠Y (ωk ) += − ωk l
• Multiplying a spectrum Y by a linear phase term
e−jωk l with phase slope −l corresponds to a circular
right-shift in the time domain by l samples:
• negative slope ⇒ time delay
• positive slope ⇒ time advance

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 Convolution

The cyclic convolution of x and y is defined as

N −1
∆
X
(x ∗ y)(n) = x(m)y(n − m), x, y ∈ CN
m=0

Cyclic convolution is also called circular convolution,

∆
since y(n − m) = y(n − m (mod N )).
Convolution is cyclic in the time domain for the DFT and
FS cases, and acyclic for the DTFT and FT cases.
The Convolution Theorem is then
(x ∗ y) ↔ X · Y

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 Correlation

The cross-correlation of x and y in CN is defined as:

N −1
∆
X
(x ⋆ y)(n) = x(m)y(n + m), x, y ∈ CN
m=0

Using this definition we have the correlation theorem:

(x ⋆ y) ↔ X(ωk )Y (ωk )

The correlation theorem is often used in the context of

spectral analysis of filtered noise signals.

Autocorrelation

The autocorrelation of a signal x ∈ CN is simply the

cross-correlation of x with itself:
N −1
∆
X
(x ⋆ x)(n) = x(m)x(m + n), x ∈ CN
m=0

From the correlation theorem, we have

(x ⋆ x) ↔ |X(ωk )|2

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 Power Theorem

The inner product of two signals is defined as:

∆
X
hx, yi = xn y n
n

Using this notation, we have the following:

1
hx, yi = hX, Y i
N
When we consider the inner product of a signal with itself,
we have a special case known as Parseval’s Theorem:
2 1 kXk2
kxk = hx, xi = hX, Xi =
N N
(Also called the Rayleigh’s Energy Theorem.)

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 Stretch

We define the Stretch operator such that:

StretchL : CN → CN L

Which means that it transforms a length N complex

signal, into a length N L signal. Specifically, we do this
by inserting L − 1 zeros in between each pair of samples
of the signal.

x y

y = Stretch2(x) →

... ...

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 Repeat or Scale

Similarly, the RepeatL operator, defined on the unit

circle, frequency-scales its input spectrum by the factor L:
ω ← Lω
The original spectrum is repeated L times as ω traverses
the unit circle. This is illustrated in the following diagram
for L = 2:

X Y

Y = REPEAT3(X) →

ω ω

Using these definitions, we have the Stretch Theorem:

StretchL(x) ↔ RepeatL(X)

Application: Upsampling by any integer factor L:

Passing the stretched signal through an ideal lowpass
filter cutting off at ω ≥ π/L yields ideal bandlimited
interpolation of the original signal by the factor L.
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 Zero-Padding ↔ Interpolation

Zero padding in the time domain corresponds to ideal

interpolation in the frequency domain.
Proof:
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/mdft/Zero Padding Theorem Spectral.html

Downsampling ↔ Aliasing

The downsampling operation DownsampleM selects

every M th sample of a signal:

∆
DownsampleM,n(x) = x(M n)
N
In the DFT case, DownsampleM maps CN to C M ,
while for the DTFT, DownsampleM maps C∞ to C∞.
The Aliasing Theorem states that downsampling in time
corresponds to aliasing in the frequency domain:
1
DownsampleM (x) ↔ AliasM (X)
M
where the Alias operator is defined for X ∈ CN

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(DFT case) as
M −1  
∆
X N N
AliasM,l (X) = X l+k , l = 0, 1, . . . , −1
M M
k=0

For X ∈ C∞ (DTFT case), the Alias operator is given

by
M −1  
∆
X ω +k 2π )
j( M
AliasM,ω (X) = X e M , −π ≤ ω < π
k=0
M −1  
∆
X
k 1
= X WM z M

k=0
∆
where WM = ej2π/M is a common notation for the
primitive M th root of unity, and z = ejω as usual. This
normalization corresponds to T = 1 after downsampling.
Thus, T = 1/M prior to downsampling.
The summation terms above for k 6= 0 are called aliasing
components.
The aliasing theorem points out that in order to
downsample by factor M without aliasing, we must first
lowpass-filter the spectrum to [−πfs/M, πfs/M ]. This
filtering essentially zeroes out the spectral regions which
alias upon sampling.
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