Mohd Noor Farhan Bin Putit

BK11110187

PROJECT TITLE: SOUND SYNTHESIS BY SIMULATION OF PHYSICAL MODELS OF

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Background Studies
Over the last decades, several powerful sound sythesis techniques have appeared on the
consumer market. This is due to both the increased computation power of processors and the reemergence of software-based synthesis. At the same time, the need for simple user interfaces to
control complex intrument models has become apparent. The digital waveguide technique is used to
build models for wind and string instruments. These models allow the simple use of natural haptic
interfaces for the measurement of the input parameters, without the need of complex parameter
mapping.
Problem Statement
Sounds synthesis historically started with the wish to generate any kind of sound using
mathemathical techniques. As the research evolved, it become possible to generate or transform any
sound conceivable. Synthesis techniques are not only used for live music performance, but are also
massively used in entertainment industry, computer games, and for the design of sound effets and
music scores for television broadcasting or feature films. This is illustrated by the economic numbers
presented in the industry. For instance, one vendor of electronic musical instruments reported net
sales of $2.15 million and one major vendor of PC soundscard reported $500 million net sales, with a
total of $25 million soundscards installed, for the piscal year 2001.
Is there a need for more synthesis techniques ? Yes, as the current techniques are capable of
the perfect reproduction of a sound, but not of the perfect generation of the sound such that the
performer can consciously control some aspects that go beyond the mere manipulation. This is one of
the reasons why although there exist many different synthesis thecniques, only a few are actually
commercially available on the consumer market. There is progression toward more interactive and
model-based digital instruments. Due to its nature, model based synthetis gives the player more
control over the physical variables that influence the sound, while non-model-based synthesis used
abstract and meaningless parameters.

Mohd Noor Farhan Bin Putit

BK11110187

References

Axel Nackaerts, Bart De Moor, and Rudy Lauwereins. Dynamic timbre matching for sound synthesis
using time-varying parametric filters. InProc. of the 43rd IEEE Midwest Symposium on Circuits and
Systems(MWSCAS 2000, CD-ROM), Lansing, Michigan, August 2000.

Axel Nackaerts, Bart De Moor, and Rudy Lauwereins. Coupled stringguitar models. In Proceedings of
Acoustics and Music : Theory and Applications (AMTA 2001, CDROM). WSES, 2001.

Axel Nackaerts, Bart De Moor, and Rudy Lauwereins. A formant filtered physical model for wind
instruments. IEEE Transactions on Speech and Audio Processing, 11(1):3644, January 2003.

H. Penttinen, M. Karjalainen, T. Paatero, and M. Jarvelainen. New techniques to model reverberant

instrument body responses. In Proc. Of the Interntional Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2001),
pages 182185, Havana, Cuba, September 2001.

V. Valimaki, T. Tolonen, and M. Karjalainen. Plucked-string synthesis algorithms with tension

modulation nonlinearity. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference in Acoustics, Speech,
and Signal Processing (ICASSP 99), volume 2, pages 977980, March 15-19 1999. Phoenix, Arizona,
http://www.acoustics.hut.fi/vpv/publications/icassp99-tm.htm.

A musical controller inspired by the cicadas efficient buckling mechanism, Journal of New Music
Research, vol. 32, pp. 361368, Dec. 2003.