Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/D074983/1
Title:	Extraction of Physical Model Parameters from Music
Principal Investigator:	van Walstijn, Dr M
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Sch of Electronics, Elec Eng & Comp Sci
Organisation:	Queen's University of Belfast
Scheme:	First Grant Scheme
Starts:	01 October 2006	Ends:	30 September 2009	Value (£):	119,082
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Music & Acoustic Technology
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
Physical modelling has become an increasingly popular technique for sound synthesis in recent decades; while traditional synthesis techniques aim to reproduce or mimic a particular waveform or spectrum, physical modelling aims to simulate the actual physical mechanisms of an acoustic sound-producing system. In addition to a much increased realism (including natural-sounding transients), the parameters of physical models have a physical meaning, thus providing an intuitive understanding of the relationship between the control parameters and the resulting sound output. Up till now, the emphasis in this area has been on pure sound synthesis, i.e. translating a set of physical parameters into audio. However in order to fully exploit the potential of physical modelling with regard to audio applications, methods for estimating the parameters from real musical instrument oscillations are required; in particular the parameters that are controlled by the player, such as those related to reed embouchure in woodwinds, must be estimated under playing conditions, and cannot be identified by direct measurements of the instrument by itself.Once the control parameters are estimated, the internal vibrations can be re-synthesised with the physical model. By manipulating the physical model parameters before the re-synthesis stage, one can perform a new form of editing recorded audio material that offers crucial advantages over existing audio editing technology. In particular, it is envisaged that in the long term, such physics-based parameterisation and re-synthesis will allow editing recorded instrumental audio without introducing undesirable side-effects. That is, the result still sounds as if produced by a player. Such technology has a huge potential with regard to the development new applications in the entertainment industries, in particular music audio technologies. Inverse modelling has not received much attention in general, but especially parameter extraction from sounds produced with bowed string and wind instruments is still an open problem. These instruments produce sustained oscillations, which on a physical level involves continuous interaction between a non-linear driving element and a linear resonator. Parameter extraction for such systems from the radiated output only is notoriously difficult, because the driver and resonator parameters must be estimated concurrently; so far, this approach has not lead to any robust, reliable estimation technqiues.This project intends to establish a completely new approach to parameter extraction, and will focus on investigating on the extraction of physical model parameters from the air vibrations inside musical wind instruments. The proposed methodology is to first identify the waves travelling inside a wind instrument by (post)-processing the internal pressure signals sensed at different points in the instrument air column. This enables to characterise the driver and the resonator separately, avoiding the inherent ambiguity problems associated with concurrent estimation.The proposed research will focus on investigating the problem of extracting time-invariant control parameters, which forms a first essential step towards the important long-term goal of full, high-fidelity, physics-based re-synthesis of musical audio produced with acoustic instruments.
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Organisation Website:	http://www.qub.ac.uk