Audio takes the stage at SigGraph 2012

August 2012 – In addition to all of the graphics on display at SigGraph, they held a session called “gooving” which focused on audio. There were a number of products being displayed from universities and industry that were on the addressing the challenging issue of virtual instruments and synthesis in combination with live instruments.

Live instruments with constructed background music has the same synchronization issues as live action video, without the benefits of mocap to aid in the timing. One of the solutions is use concatenative synths that stitch rhythms together using individual instruments. This method allows for rhythm changes to be modeled and played back as they are built from real samples and have the live-performance variability in pitch and timing that is “realism” aspect of “performance”.

The systems focused primarily on guitar, piano, drum, and bass models behind a vocal or instrumental lead. The systems created used a joystick control to vary velocity, energy, notes and pitch for the synth instruments. All of the models are stored in VST format for interoperability with multiple systems for recording and playback.