Creating New Kinds of Music with Mathematica

Perry Cook
Princeton University

The task of artificially creating a realistic auditory experience presents many challenges, bringing an abundance of mathematical and computational problems. Systems must provide flexible and parametric models of the physical processes that create sounds, expressive controllers for manipulating sounds, and convincing display of sound sources at their correct locations in three-dimensional space. This talk will introduce algorithms for sound synthesis based on physical and statistical models. New input devices for controlling sound in virtual environments and musical performance will be presented. Some projects involving multiple-channel audio systems and directional sound applications will be described.

Perry Cook received a B.A. in music from the University of Missouri at Kansas City Conservatory of Music, a B.S.E.E. from the University of Missouri Engineering School, and master's and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University. His research has centered on computer music, vocal acoustics, and sound synthesis. He served as Technical Director for the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, researching the computer simulation of musical instruments and the singing voice, controllers for real-time music synthesis and performance, and audio compression. He has consulted and worked in the areas of DSP, image compression, music synthesis, and speech processing for NeXT, Media Vision, and other companies. He is currently Assistant Professor of Computer Science with a joint appointment in music at Princeton University, researching human computer interfaces for the control of sound, auditory display, and immersive sound environments.