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Soundscape Design Through Evolutionary Engines

Abstract

Two implementations of an Evolutionary Sound Synthesis method using the Interaural Time Difference (ITD) and psychoacoustic descriptors are presented here as a way to develop criteria for fitness evaluation. We also explore a relationship between adaptive sound evolution and three soundscape characteristics: keysounds, key-signals and sound-marks. Sonic Localization Field is defined using a sound attenuation factor and ITD azimuth angle, respectively (Ii, Li). These pairs are used to build Spatial Sound Genotypes (SSG) and they are extracted from a waveform population set. An explanation on how our model was initially written in MATLAB is followed by a recent Pure Data (Pd) implementation. It also elucidates the development and use of: parametric scores, a triplet of psychoacoustic descriptors and the correspondent graphical user interface.

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Fornari, J., Maia, A. & Manzolli, J. Soundscape Design Through Evolutionary Engines. J Braz Comp Soc 14, 51–64 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03192564

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