Paper Archive

A central challenge for a cappella singers is to adjust their intonation and to stay in tune relative to their fellow singers. During editing of a cappella recordings, one may want to adjust local intonation of individual singers or account for global intonation drifts over time. This requires applying a time-varying pitch-shift to the audio recording, which we refer to as adaptive pitch-shifting. In this context, existing (semi-)automatic approaches are either laborintensive or face technical and musical limitations. In this work, we present automatic methods and tools for adaptive pitch-shifting with applications to intonation adjustment in a cappella recordings. To this end, we show how to incorporate time-varying information into existing pitch-shifting algorithms that are based on resampling and time-scale modification (TSM). Furthermore, we release an open-source Python toolbox, which includes a variety of TSM algorithms and an implementation of our method. Finally, we show the potential of our tools by two case studies on global and local intonation adjustment in a cappella recordings using a publicly available multitrack dataset of amateur choral singing.

Download

A filtering algorithm for generating subtle random variations in sampled sounds is proposed. Using only one recording for impact sound effects or drum machine sounds results in unrealistic repetitiveness during consecutive playback. This paper studies spectral variations in repeated knocking sounds and in three drum sounds: a hihat, a snare, and a tomtom. The proposed method uses a short pseudo-random velvet-noise filter and a low-shelf filter to produce timbral variations targeted at appropriate spectral regions, yielding potentially an endless number of new realistic versions of a single percussive sampled sound. The realism of the resulting processed sounds is studied in a listening test. The results show that the sound quality obtained with the proposed algorithm is at least as good as that of a previous method while using 77% fewer computational operations. The algorithm is widely applicable to computer-generated music and game audio.

Download

This paper presents an application of the port Hamiltonian formalism to the nonlinear simulation of the OTA-based Korg35 filter circuit and the Moog 4-pole ladder filter circuit. Lyapunov analysis is used with their state-space representations to guarantee zero-input stability over the range of parameters consistent with the actual circuits. A zero-input stable non-iterative discrete-time scheme based on a discrete gradient and a change of state variables is shown along with numerical simulations. Simulations show behavior consistent with the actual operation of the circuits, e.g., self-oscillation, and are found to be stable and have lower computational cost compared to iterative methods.

Download

A method is proposed to encode the acoustic scattering of objects for virtual acoustic applications through a multiple-input and multiple-output framework. The scattering is encoded as a matrix in the spherical harmonic domain, and can be re-used and manipulated (rotated, scaled and translated) to synthesize various sound scenes. The proposed method is applied and validated using Boundary Element Method simulations which shows accurate results between references and synthesis. The method is compatible with existing frameworks such as Ambisonics and image source methods.

Download

This paper presents a technique addressing signal discontinuity and concatenation artefacts in real-time granular processing with rectangular windowing. By combining zero-crossing synchronicity, first-order derivative analysis, and Lagrange polynomials, we can generate streams of uncorrelated and non-overlapping sonic fragments with minimal low-order derivatives discontinuities. The resulting open-source algorithm, implemented in the Faust language, provides a versatile real-time software for dynamical looping, wavetable oscillation, and granulation with reduced artefacts due to rectangular windowing and no artefacts from overlap-add-to-one techniques commonly deployed in granular processing.

Download

In this paper, a complete simulation of a trombone using finitedifference time-domain (FDTD) methods is proposed. In particular, we propose the use of a novel method to dynamically vary the number of grid points associated to the FDTD method, to simulate the fact that the physical dimension of the trombone’s resonator dynamically varies over time. We describe the different elements of the model and present the results of a real-time simulation.

Download

Onset detectors are used to recognize the beginning of musical events in audio signals. Manual parameter tuning for onset detectors is a time consuming task, while existing automated approaches often maximize only a single performance metric. These automated approaches cannot be used to optimize detector algorithms for complex scenarios, such as real-time onset detection where an optimization process must consider both detection accuracy and latency. For this reason, a flexible optimization algorithm should account for more than one performance metric in a multiobjective manner. This paper presents a generalized procedure for automated optimization of parametric onset detectors. Our procedure employs a bio-inspired evolutionary computation algorithm to replace manual parameter tuning, followed by the computation of the Pareto frontier for multi-objective optimization. The proposed approach was evaluated on all the onset detection methods of the Aubio library, using a dataset of monophonic acoustic guitar recordings. Results show that the proposed solution is effective in reducing the human effort required in the optimization process: it replaced more than two days of manual parameter tuning with 13 hours and 34 minutes of automated computation. Moreover, the resulting performance was comparable to that obtained by manual optimization.

Download

Virtual analog (VA) modeling using neural networks (NNs) has great potential for rapidly producing high-fidelity models. Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are especially appealing for VA due to their connection with discrete nodal analysis. Furthermore, VA models based on NNs can be trained efficiently by directly exposing them to the circuit states in a gray-box fashion. However, exposure to ground truth information during training can leave the models susceptible to error accumulation in a free-running mode, also known as “exposure bias” in machine learning literature. This paper presents a unified framework for treating the previously proposed state trajectory network (STN) and gated recurrent unit (GRU) networks as special cases of discrete nodal analysis. We propose a novel circuit state-matching mechanism for the GRU and experimentally compare the previously mentioned networks for their performance in state matching, during training, and in exposure bias, during inference. Experimental results from modeling a diode clipper show that all the tested models exhibit some exposure bias, which can be mitigated by truncated backpropagation through time. Furthermore, the proposed state matching mechanism improves the GRU modeling performance of an overdrive pedal and a phaser pedal, especially in the presence of external modulation, apparent in a phaser circuit.

Download

The article performs a generic comparison of integrator- and differentiator based continuous-time systems as well as their discretetime models, aiming to answer the reoccurring question in the music DSP community of whether there are any benefits in using differentiators instead of conventionally employed integrators. It is found that both kinds of models are practically equivalent, but there are certain reservations about differentiator based models.

Download

Air absorption effects lead to significant attenuation in high frequencies over long distances and this is critical to model in wide-band virtual acoustic simulations. Air absorption is commonly modelled using filter banks applied to an impulse response or to individual impulse events (rays or image sources) arriving at a receiver. Such filter banks require non-trivial fitting to air absorption attenuation curves, as a function of time or distance, in the case of IIR approximations, or may suffer from overlap-add artefacts in the case of FIR approximations. In this study, a filter method is presented which avoids the aforementioned issues. The proposed approach relies on a time-varying diffusion kernel that is found in an approximate Green’s function solution to Stokes’ equation in free space. This kernel acts as a low-pass filter that is parametrised by physical constants, and can be applied to an impulse response using time-varying convolution. Numerical examples are presented demonstrating the utility of this approach for adding air absorption effects to room impulse responses simulated using geometrical acoustics or wave-based methods.

Download