Recent research in physical modeling of musical instruments for purposes of sound synthesis is reviewed. Recent references, results, and outstanding problems are highlighted for models of strings, winds, brasses, percussion, and acoustic spaces. Emphasis is placed on digital waveguide models and the musical acoustics research on which they are based.

The sound quality of real-time synthesis based on physical models has so far been inferior to sampling techniques. In this paper we introduce new principles to make model-based sound synthesis of the guitar and other plucked string instruments more attractive from the viewpoint of sound quality. A major improvement is achieved by estimating the model parameters and the excitation signal from the sound of an acoustic instrument. It is shown that the impulse response of the body is included in this excitation. More complex string behavior, including nonlinearities in some instruments, is briefly studied. Furthermore, different aspects of controlling the real-time synthesis model are discussed. High-quality real-time synthesis is shown to be feasible by using a single digital signal processor.

This thesis proposes banded waveguide synthesis as an approach to real-time sound synthesis based on the underlying physics. So far three main approaches have been widely used: digital waveguide synthesis, modal synthesis and finite element methods. Digital waveguide synthesis is efficient and realistic and captures the complete dynamics of the underlying physics but is restricted to instruments that are well-described by the one-dimensional string equation. Modal synthesis is efficient and realistic yet abandons complete dynamical description and hence cannot used for certain types of performance interactions like bowing. Finite element methods are realistic and capture the behavior of the constituent physical equations but on current commodity hardware does not perform in real-time. Banded waveguides offer efficient simulations for cases for which modal synthesis is appropriate but traditional digital waveguide synthesis is not applicable. The key realization is that the dynamic behavior of traveling waves, which is being used in waveg-uide synthesis, can be applied to individual modes and that the efficient computational

Distributed physical models of musical instruments have been used to acoustically “ping ” Internet connections between two network hosts. Sound waves propagated through Internet acoustics behave just as in air, water or along a stretched string. In this case, a musical synthesis technique creates waves on the Internet path between two hosts. When waves recirculate between two endpoints, a musical tone is created if the round trip travel time lies within the range of our pitch sense (roughly  ¢¡¤£¤¥§¦ to ¡¤£©¨� ¦). The result-ing tones provide a quick and intuitive evaluation of quality of service (QoS), displaying its significant aspects including latency, jitter and packet loss. Stable, clear tones with high pitch indicate good end-to-end capabilities that a path must support for immersive, real-time applications. A “network harp ” recently demonstrated 320 synthesized strings oscillating across the Western half of the Internet2 Abilene Network. 1.

Creative and technical considerations in building a musical instrument to traverse acoustical space and network space. Conceiving a musical instrument for heterogeneous space and democratic use requires implementation of diverse modes and techniques satisfying needs of tactile local presence, and tangible telepresence. Tel result is an artistic pro ect destined for multi-site gallery installation and performance. It is a musical instrument that exists in the mixed realities of acoustical space and network space. KK K Ke e e ey y y yw w w wo o o or r r rd d d ds s s s Network music, sensor instrument, gallery installation PP P Pr r r ro o o o ee e ec c c c tt t t UU U UR R R RL L L L :: http://www.sensorband.com/atau/globalstring/ YY Y Ye e e ea a a ar r r r tt t th h h he e e e WW W Wo o o or r r rk k k k ww w wa a a as s s s cc c cr r r re e e ea a a a t te e e ed d d d :: :: 1998 -2000 PP P Pr r r ro o o o jj j je e e ec c c c tt t t PP P Pa a a ar r r r t tn n n ne e e er r r rs s s s :: GMD, WDR,TR Daniel Langlois Foundation, V2, Ars Electronica Center

this paper reviews two applications in digital waveguide modeling: single reed woodwinds (such as the clarinet), and bowed strings (such as the violin). In these applications, a sustained sound is synthesized by the interaction of the digital waveguide with a nonlinear junction causing spontaneous, self-sustaining oscillation in response to an applied mouth pressure or bow velocity, respectively. This type of nonlinear oscillation forms the basis of the Yamaha "VL" series of synthesizers ("VL" standing for "virtual lead"). 2 Single-Reed Instruments

The electric guitar has been developed to withstand electric amplification and utilize (mostly analog) signal processing in order to create a multitude of timbres and sound types. Sometimes it would be desirable to play the same electric guitar, yet with a sound that resembles a good acoustic guitar or some other member of the plucked string instrument family. In this sudy we have investigated DSP techniques that can be used to shape the magnetic pickup output of the electric guitar to simulate acoustic instruments. This includes linear filtering for body simulation, time-varying modulation to generate beating of the harmonic components, and techniques to simulate the general temporal envelope of the plucked notes. (See also

This study introduces a method for estimating the model parameters of plucked string instruments using artificial neural networks (ANN's). The system consists of a preprocessor and an ANN model. The preprocessor computes the time-varying harmonics of recorded sounds and this data is fed into the ANN model to implement the nonlinear mapping to the parameter space. The main advantage of this method is that it performs the mapping according to a perceptual measure derived from listening tests. 1. Introduction The use of physical models to synthesize musical sounds in real-time has brought new concepts to sound synthesis. As opposed to sampling synthesis, which provides only a few samples from a broad timbral space, physical modeling focuses on the sound production mechanisms, thus aiming to describe the musical sound by a small set of intuitive and flexible parameters. Researchers consider precise physical relations (often limited by the hardware available) as well as the properties of ...

Abstract not found

We propose different applications in which extensions of digital waveguides have been used in a compositional context. 1.