In this paper, we present a thorough treatment of a harpsichord plectrum-string interaction which allows for large end deflections and both transverse motions of the string. We start from the general equations of motion of a bent beam, and an accurate shape of the plectrum is calculated, agreeing with existing known cantilever beam models when end deflections are assumed small. All the governing forces on the string are considered, and the complete motion of the string up to its release is simulated, allowing for future implementation on physical model sound synthesis of strings. Simulation results agree with what is experienced playing a real harpsichord string.

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In Mechanical Sound Synthesis, real mechanical devices are employed to create sound. Users can interact directly with the variables of the sound synthesis, making interactions more intuitive to both users and audience. We focus on real-time feedback control for Mechanical Sound Synthesis and provide a classification scheme using the reality-virtuality continuum. We discover an apparently novel paradigm, which is described as augmented virtuality for real-time feedback control. Exploring this paradigm, we present preliminary results from a system enabling a user to teleoperate acoustic percussion instruments with the aid of force feedback. Mechanical looping of the teleoperation trajectories and their transformations enables the synthesis of lifelike sounds with superhuman characteristics that are nevertheless produced by mechanical devices.

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Music performance is highly related to instrumentalists’ movements and one of the biggest challenges is the identification and understanding of gesture strategies according to the plethora of musical nuances (dynamics, tempo, etc..) available to performers. During these past few years, a novel approach has been elaborated, consisting in studying movement strategies through auditory rendering. In this paper, we focus on the auditory analysis of timpani (percussion) gestures. We present a novel interface combining movement simulation and sonification as a means of enhancing the auditory analysis of timpani gestures. We further report the results from an evaluation of this interface, where we study the contributions of sonification to the multimodal display.

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This paper describes a singing-to-speaking synthesis system called “SpeakBySinging” that can synthesize a speaking voice from an input singing voice and the song lyrics. The system controls three acoustic features that determine the difference between speaking and singing voices: the fundamental frequency (F0), phoneme duration, and power (volume). By changing these features of a singing voice, the system synthesizes a speaking voice while retaining the timbre of the singing voice. The system first analyzes the singing voice to extract the F0 contour, the duration of each phoneme of the lyrics, and the power. These features are then converted to target values that are obtained by feeding the lyrics into a traditional text-to-speech (TTS) system. The system finally generates a speaking voice that preserves the timbre of the singing voice but has speech-like features. Experimental results show that SpeakBySinging can convert singing voices into speaking voices whose timbre is almost the same as the original singing voices.

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The Soundscape concept was introduced as a scope to rethink the evaluation of "noise" and its effects. The challenge was to consider the limits of acoustic measurements and to account for its cultural dimension introduced by Schafer’s neologism and research. Soundscape suggests exploring noise in its complexity and its ambivalence and its approach towards sound to consider the conditions and purposes of its production, perception, and evaluation, to understand evaluation of noise/ sound as an holistic approach. To discuss the contribution of Soundscape research means to focus on the meaning of sounds and its implicit assessments to contribute to the understanding that the evaluation through perceptual effects is a key issue. Analysis will place sound in context, with noise and sound linked to activity at realistic study sites. Besides the acoustical setting the listener sensational reality depends on the sociocultural background and the psychological dimension. The acoustical socialization (acoustical biography) and action frame of reference of the people concerned will influence environmental noise evaluation as well. Tools for the exploration of the Soundscape, microscopic as well as macroscopic, are needed. Beside the involvement of different disciplines it important to define areas that should built the platform in further development as economics, noise policy-standards, combined effects, common protocols, cross cultural studies, education about Soundscape, combined measurement procedures, qualitative and quantitative parameters, including the character of sounds and cross cultural questionnaires, and also the importance of survey site selection has to be emphasized.

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In this paper we present graphical tools and parameters search algorithms for the timbre space exploration and design of complex sounds generated by physical modeling synthesis. The tools are built around a sparse representation of sounds based on Gammatone functions and provide the designer with both a graphical and an auditory insight. The auditory representation of a number of reference sounds, located as landmarks in a 2D sound design space, provides the designer with an effective aid to direct his search for new sounds. The sonic landmarks can either be synthetic sounds chosen by the user or be automatically derived by using clever parameter search and clustering algorithms. The proposed probabilistic method in this paper makes use of the sparse representations to model the distance between sparsely represented sounds. A subsequent optimization model minimizes those distances to estimate the optimal parameters, which generate the landmark sounds on the given auditory landscape.

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We describe a system to synthesize in real-time footsteps sounds. The sound engine is based on physical models and physically inspired models reproducing the act of walking on several surfaces. To control the real-time engine, three solutions are proposed. The first two solutions are based on floor microphones, while the third one is based on shoes enhanced with sensors. The different solutions proposed are discussed in the paper.

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In this paper, we present a preliminary experiment whose goal is to assess the role of temporal aspects in sonically simulating the act of walking on a bump or a hole. In particular, we investigate whether the timing between heel and toe and the timing between footsteps affects the perception of walking on unflat surfaces. Results show that it is possible to simulate a bump or a hole by only using temporal information in the auditory modality.

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Acoustic feedback is capable of driving an electroacoustic amplification system unstable. Inserting a frequency shifter into the feedback loop can increase the maximum stable gain before instability. In this paper, we explain how frequency shifting can effectively smooth out the feedback loop magnitude response and how this relates to the system stability. Then we describe measurements on real acoustic systems that we employ to study the practical performance. Although useful for stabilizing systems in reverberant environments, reasonably small amounts of frequency shifting do not provide a significant benefit for hearing aids. It can be helpful to employ a microphone with a focused directivity pattern, and we describe how the directivity pattern may affect the efficacy of frequency shifting.

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Most room acoustics simulations and auralization techniques are based on geometric acoustic algorithms, commonly combining image-source and ray-tracing methods for impulse response calculation. This paper investigates the acoustics of a medieval English church and compares a geometric acoustic computer based auralization with measurements obtained from the actual space. More specifically, it focuses on the determination of the influence of different aspects and factors on typical objective room acoustic characteristics. These results are presented and then discussed in terms of how they can be improved and optimized when compared with the measured results.

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