Automated Granular Synthesis of Sound

Roads, Curtis

doi:10.2307/3680222

Cited by 89 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…This is the domain of particle sound synthesis , which takes different forms depending on the properties of the particles and the strategy for particle generation. Granular synthesis and pulsar synthesis are two of the best‐known techniques 4‐6…”

Section: The Timescale Of Sound Particlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Perception of Microsound and its Musical Implications

Roads

2003

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

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Sound particles or microsounds last only a few milliseconds, near the threshold of auditory perception. We can easily analyze the physical properties of sound particles either individually or in masses. However, correlating these properties with human perception remains complicated. One cannot speak of a single time frame, or a "time constant" for the auditory system. The hearing mechanism involves many different agents, each of which operates on its own timescale. The signals being sent by diverse hearing agents are integrated by the brain into a coherent auditory picture. The pioneer of "sound quanta," Dennis Gabor (1900-1979), suggested that at least two mechanisms are at work in microevent detection: one that isolates events, and another that ascertains their pitch. Human hearing imposes a certain minimum duration in order to establish a firm sense of pitch, amplitude, and timbre. This paper traces disparate strands of literature on the topic and summarizes their meaning. Specifically, we examine the perception of intensity and pitch of microsounds, the phenomena of tone fusion and fission, temporal auditory acuity, and preattentive perception. The final section examines the musical implications of microsonic analysis, synthesis, and transformation.

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Section: The Timescale Of Sound Particlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Human auditory perception is exquisitely attuned to the musical properties of microevents. Since the development of computer‐based techniques in the early 1970s, it has been possible to compose music on this scale 4. Graphical audio tools make it easy to zoom in and operate on microsounds 44.…”

Section: Conclusion: the Musical Implications Of Microsoundmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Perception of Microsound and its Musical Implications

Roads

2003

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

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“…The groups of attacks were small enough to still be considered simple sound events, but they included a distinctive musical character in addition to the pitch's contour (group envelope or shape). Remarkably, the process adopted to realize Procedure , although not going down to the domain of the Gabor's “sound quanta,” appears somewhat similar to some techniques of electronic sound manipulation such as granular synthesis and pulsar synthesis 22,37‐41…”

Section: Procedures Per Simulazioni Indentate 1995‐1996mentioning

confidence: 99%

Translation from Neurobiological Data to Music Parameters

Minciacchi¹

2003

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

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Composers have explored different ways to use biological information for the realization of music. Throughout the decades, biological findings have been repeatedly indicated as a source of inspiration or a reservoir of extramusical material for musical composition. More radical and fertile are attempts to produce music systematically using biological data in processes called data sonification or biofeedback techniques. Presented here is a novel strategy of translation where populations of neurobiological data are converted into relational structures from which sound objects are generated by flexible and homogeneous control of the sound parameters. All brain data originate from experiments performed with standard anatomical and physiological techniques, and results of studies based on these experimental materials have already been published. During the translation processes, the information for every sound parameter (such as pitch, duration, envelope, and dynamics) is never derived from fixed transcriptions of data properties. Rather, the space and/or the time interrelations of data populations are used to obtain indexes for sound construction. In this way, equivalent sets of information are exploited to model, or sculpt, the different parameters of sound objects. Three examples from the last decade's personal productions are given. The first refers to the microformal aspects of sound aggregation and is based on data from a microstimulation experiment in the motor cortex. The second describes the earliest translation process developed for live performance with conventional instruments and is based on experiments using a conventional tract tracing technique to compare selected spinal-projecting cell populations in two differently organized brains. The third outlines a recent music production for three pianos based on data from experiments using the multiple fluorescent tract-tracing technique to simultaneously label different populations of thalamocortical neurons. The approach here described can potentially contribute to a unitary view of the different sound parameters and of the micro- and macroformal aspects of the compositional process.

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“…In the electro-acoustic music community, Curtis Roads (Roads, 1978) and Barry Truax (Truax, 1994) pioneered granular synthesis, in which small grains are combined to form com-*Correspondence to reynald@ece.ubc.ca. plicated sounds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synthetic Soundscapes with Natural Grains

Hoskinson

Pai

2007

Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments

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We present a technique to facilitate the creation of constantly changing, randomized audio streams from samples of source material. A core motivation is to make it easier to quickly create soundscapes for virtual environments and other scenarios where long streams of audio are used. While mostly in the background, these streams are vital for the creation of mood and realism in these types of applications. Our approach is to extract the component parts of sampled audio signals, and use them to resynthesize a continuous audio stream of indeterminate length. An automatic segmentation algorithm involving wavelets is used to split the input signal into syllable-like audio segments that we call "natural grains." For each grain, a table of similarity between it and all the other grains is constructed. The grains are then output in a continuous stream, with the next grain being chosen from among those other grains which best follow from it. Using this sampling-resynthesis technique, we can construct an infinite number of variations on the original signal with a minimum amount of interaction. An interface for the manipulation and playback of several of these streams is provided to facilitate building complex audio environments, and is made available for online experimentation at www.cs.ubc.ca/labs/lci/ naturalgrains/.

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Automated Granular Synthesis of Sound

Cited by 89 publications

References 0 publications

The Perception of Microsound and its Musical Implications

The Perception of Microsound and its Musical Implications

Translation from Neurobiological Data to Music Parameters

Synthetic Soundscapes with Natural Grains

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