Toward fully automated electronic ancient acoustic musical instruments

There are several issues with using most stringed instruments. The sounds generated while playing these instruments are low volume sounds. Moreover, the player cannot control the volume or tone of the sound created by the instrument. These issues cause difficulty with hearing the generated sounds in large concerts. The aim of this research project is to use electronic circuit concepts, signal processing techniques, and pattern recognition techniques to overcome these issues. During this four-month internship, the applicant will focus on improving the performance of a fully digital stringed instrument that has been designed and built by Balute Inc. The analog signals received from several piezoelectric sensors (transducers) installed on the instrument will be de-noised, filtered, and then interpreted. The interpretation is to determine the sound (from a library) that should be sent to an audio amplifier driving several loudspeakers. Data mining techniques and classification methods will be used to develop an interpretation system.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. Daniel W. Stashuk

Student:

Hossein Parsaei

Partner:

Balute Inc.

Discipline:

Engineering - other

Sector:

Consumer goods

University:

University of Waterloo