Com Sci 295
Digital Sound Modelling

Here is a picture showing the structure of the sound domain.

[mystery]

This is why sound is not so simple to model. If you understand the picture thoroughly, please explain it to me. If you don't understand it, enroll for the course.

... it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene V.

William Shakespeare mentioned sound in many other plays and sonnets.

Online discussion using HyperNews

Next scheduled for Spring 1999.
Instructor: Michael J. O'Donnell
Office: Ryerson 165B (normal) or 165A (for sound work)
Office hours: by appointment. Contact me by email (odonnell@cs.uchicago.edu), phone at the office (773-702-1269), or phone at home (847-835-1837 between 9:30 and 5:30 on days that I work at home). You may drop in to the office any time, but you may find me out or busy if you haven't confirmed an appointment. Check my personal schedule before proposing an appointment.
Course evaluations from previous quarters.

Last modified: Wed Mar 6 10:54:01 1996

Catalog Description

In this course we learn how the basic structure of sound perception affects the useful ways of processing sound through digital computations. The focus is on basic synthesis techniques, rather than on signal analysis, or on special applications of synthesis such as music or speech. The text title is misleading---it is not as closely oriented to music as it seems.

Prerequisites

Introductory computer programming (ComSci 105/106 or 110/111 or 115/116), basic knowledge of elementary trigonometry and calculus.

Recommended Texts

There is no really appropriate textbook for this course, but there are some books that cover some of the material rather well, and which you should add to your personal library.

Curtis Roads. The Computer Music Tutorial. MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1996. This book costs $50, but it's huge and has a lot of interesting material. Much of it is about music performance, but there is a lot of general material on sound, too. The bookstore has this one. If you're serious about the topic, you need this in your library.
John Strawn, editor. Digital Audio Signal Processing: an anthology. William Kaufmann, Los Altos CA, 1985. A-R Editions, Madison WI. This is a nice cheap book (about $25), covering several elementary topics in the basic mathematics of sound very well, and with a particularly accessible treatment of digital filter theory. It also has some wacky chapters. Unfortunately, it is being reprinted, and probably won't be available during the semester.
Ronald N. Bracewell. The Fourier Transform and Its Applications. McGraw-Hill, New York, 2nd edition 1986. This is a dense reference for engineers. It has a very nice pictorial dictionary of Fourier Transforms in the back. It cost me $58. Most people don't need this, but anyone who intends to really use the Fourier Transform will bite the bullet and shell out the price, even though it's rather high for a small and specialized item.
A. J. M. Houtsma, T. D. Rossing, W. M. Wagenaars. Auditory Demonstrations (an audio CD). Philips 1126-061 (1987). This CD provides the most efficient way that I know to get a firm intuitive grasp of auditory perception. Everyone in the class needs to listen to the demonstrations on her own during the semester. I have a number of copies that I will lend. The CD is available from the Acoustical Society of America for about $25. I bought my copies at the members' discount of $20. If you would like to keep your own copy, I'll pass one on for $20. Think about joining the ASA.

Required Equipment

Stereo headphones with small jack plug and a long connecting wire (probably a separate extension cord). They can be cheap. Headphones from portable music machines suffice. The long wire or extension cord is essential, since the headphone jack is on the back of the SGI computer.