The Evolution of E-Inclusion: Technology in Education for the Vision-Impaired

The 1970s and 1980s saw a rapid take-up in the use of personal computers. During the same time period, society began to move towards providing equity for people with disabilities. As legislators around the world created new disability and Information Technology policies, more people with disabilities were given access to education and the evolving computing tools provided unprecedented educational opportunities. These opportunities were due to the use of new technologies such as outputting of electronic text to voice synthesizers. The provision of assistive technology was not only helpful; it also provided education through a medium that was previously unavailable, particular to the blind and vision impaired. For much of the 1980s the development of text-processing sensory technologies, connected to personal computers, led to a closer equality between the educational services of the able-bodied and people with disabilities. Unfortunately this evolution as not without notable difficulties: issues surrounding the cost of products, the lack of support from large corporations and choice of platform resulted in substantial difficulties for educators in the assessment of appropriate technology. In addition, many of these products became largely redundant in the late-1980s as corporations began to place more emphasis on the Graphical User Interface (GUI). Although the GUI was remarkably successful in allowing the general public to gain better access to personal computing, it’s non-text nature once again caused a digital divide for people with disabilities. Although it is clear that the evolution of the personal computer has had a significant impact on the provision of education for people with disabilities, this paper highlights the historical repetition where innovation is prioritized above e-inclusion

Automatic sound synthesizer programming: techniques and applications

The aim of this thesis is to investigate techniques for, and applications of automatic sound synthesizer programming. An automatic sound synthesizer programmer is a system which removes the requirement to explicitly specify parameter settings for a sound synthesis algorithm from the user. Two forms of these systems are discussed in this thesis: tone matching programmers and synthesis space explorers. A tone matching programmer takes at its input a sound synthesis algorithm and a desired target sound. At its output it produces a configuration for the sound synthesis algorithm which causes it to emit a similar sound to the target. The techniques for achieving this that are investigated are genetic algorithms, neural networks, hill climbers and data driven approaches. A synthesis space explorer provides a user with a representation of the space of possible sounds that a synthesizer can produce and allows them to interactively explore this space. The applications of automatic sound synthesizer programming that are investigated include studio tools, an autonomous musical agent and a self-reprogramming drum machine. The research employs several methodologies: the development of novel software frameworks and tools, the examination of existing software at the source code and performance levels and user trials of the tools and software. The main contributions made are: a method for visualisation of sound synthesis space and low dimensional control of sound synthesizers; a general purpose framework for the deployment and testing of sound synthesis and optimisation algorithms in the SuperCollider language sclang; a comparison of a variety of optimisation techniques for sound synthesizer programming; an analysis of sound synthesizer error surfaces; a general purpose sound synthesizer programmer compatible with industry standard tools; an automatic improviser which passes a loose equivalent of the Turing test for Jazz musicians, i.e. being half of a man-machine duet which was rated as one of the best sessions of 2009 on the BBC's 'Jazz on 3' programme

Functionality and history of electronics in regards to the performance practice of the following works: Temazcal (1984), Javier Álvarez, and Memory Palace (2012), Christopher Cerrone

Master's Project (M.Mu.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2016The Electroacoustic pieces; Temazcal (1984), by Javier Alvarez (b.1956), and Memory Palace (2012) by Christopher Cerrone (b.1984), each employ different types of electronic technologies in their realization through performance. This paper will discuss the origin and history of the technology applied respectively in the works. I will examine the role of percussion within the works, specifically in regards to learning and problem solving through technological challenges in order to effectively perform the compositions. By looking at Temazcal and Memory Palace through the context of their historical significance as electroacoustic works, the inherent functionality of the technology employed in each, and the resultant performance practices that have subsequently developed, a greater musical appreciation and understanding of electroacoustic works, in general, is possible

Non-speech auditory output

No abstract available

The Synthesizer: Modernist and Technological Transformations in Film Sound and Contemporary Music

The invention of the synthesizer meant the possibility of achieving virtually any sound in one mechanism, a superbly convenient device for musical creativity. Perhaps the perfect space for this approval of sound creativity was in the modern electronic film score. The synthesizer also flourished in popular music immediately following its emergence, but a common form began to solidify itself among synthesizer music. Shortly after, improvements in electronic instrument technology led to the democratization of electronic music and equipment, ultimately leading to electronic music as the new mainstream

Play it Again: Evolved Audio Effects and Synthesizer Programming

Automatic programming of sound synthesizers and audio devices to match a given, desired sound is examined and a Genetic Algorithm (GA) that functions independent of specific synthesis techniques is proposed. Most work in this area has focused on one synthesis model or synthesizer, designing the GA and tuning the operator parameters to obtain optimal results. The scope of such inquiries has been limited by available computing power, however current software (Ableton Live, herein) and commercially available hardware is shown to quickly find accurate solutions, promising a practical application for music creators. Both software synthesizers and audio effects processors are examined, showing a wide range of performance times (from seconds to hours) and solution accuracy, based on particularities of the target devices. Random oscillators, phase synchronizing, and filters over empty frequency ranges are identified as primary challenges for GA based optimization

A review of differentiable digital signal processing for music and speech synthesis

The term “differentiable digital signal processing” describes a family of techniques in which loss function gradients are backpropagated through digital signal processors, facilitating their integration into neural networks. This article surveys the literature on differentiable audio signal processing, focusing on its use in music and speech synthesis. We catalogue applications to tasks including music performance rendering, sound matching, and voice transformation, discussing the motivations for and implications of the use of this methodology. This is accompanied by an overview of digital signal processing operations that have been implemented differentiably, which is further supported by a web book containing practical advice on differentiable synthesiser programming (https://intro2ddsp.github.io/). Finally, we highlight open challenges, including optimisation pathologies, robustness to real-world conditions, and design trade-offs, and discuss directions for future research

Singing voice resynthesis using concatenative-based techniques

Tese de Doutoramento. Engenharia Informática. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 201