Is it possible to play music together over the Internet?

Speech Warping and Audio Restoration - Speech Gender Conversion

From May 5, 2011

http://www.mattmontag.com/projects/speech-warping-and-audio-restoration/

Matt Montag - EEN 540 Speech Signal Processing - Project 3

MATLAB Files

proj3.m project script
pad.m utility function to make two vectors match in size
fftplot.m utility function
averageLogSpectrum.m utility function to compute average log spectrum

Speech Gender Conversion

http://www.mattmontag.com/development/speech-gender-conversion

Barack Obama	obama.wav	obama_to_female.wav	obama_to_child.wav
Sarah Palin	palin.wav	palin_to_male.wav	palin_to_female.wav
Katie Couric	couric.wav	couric_to_male.wav
Al Gore	algore.wav	algore_to_female.wav	algore_to_child.wav
Hip-Hop	turnstiles.wav	turnstiles_to_child.wav

Behringer U-Control UCA202 | Sweetwater.com

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UCA202

16-bit/48kHz, 2-channel USB Audio Interface with Optical Out

Portable USB Interface

Are you looking for a compact and easy to use USB interface? One that you can take anywhere with you? The Behringer U-Control UCA202 comes in at about the same size as a smartphone, making it extremely portable. The USB-powered interface has two RCA inputs, two RCA outputs, headphone out, and an optical digital output. The 16-bit/48kHz converters ensure high-quality audio into and low-latency playback out of your computer. Connect your instruments or mixer to your computer with the UCA202 and record to your hearts content. The Behringer U-Control UCA202 comes with free downloadable audio recording and editing software.

Behringer U-Control UCA202

• 2 In/2 Out USB Audio Interface
• Mac or PC, no drivers required
• 16-bit/48kHz converters
• Low latency
• Headphone output
• Optical out
• USB powered
• Free DAW download

The Behringer U-Control UCA202 is the perfect, portable USB interface.

Tech Specs

Computer Connectivity	USB 2.0
Form Factor	Desktop
Simultaneous I/O	2 x 2
A/D Resolution	16-bit/48kHz
Analog Inputs	2 x RCA
Analog Outputs	2 x RCA
Digital Outputs	1 x Optical
Bus Powered	Yes
Depth	0.87"
Width	3.46"
Height	2.36"
Weight	0.26 lbs.
Manufacturer Part Number	UCA202

New optical technique extracts audio from video

http://phys.org/news/2014-12-walls-optical-technique-audio-video.html


Those formerly silent walls can "talk" now: Researchers have demonstrated a simple optical technique by which audio information can be extracted from high-speed video recordings. The method uses an image-matching process based on vibration from sound waves, and is reported in an article appearing in the November issue of the journal Optical Engineering, published by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.

"One of the intriguing aspects of the paper is the ability to recover spoken words from a video of objects in the room," said journal Associate Editor Reiner Eschbach, a Research Fellow at Xerox Corp. "The paper shows that the sound creates minute vibrations in objects and that these vibrations ― given the right equipment ― can be picked up from a video signal. This is an interesting foray into a new application space and will, in my view, trigger interesting research in the field,"

The article, "Audio extraction from silent high-speed video using an optical technique," was authored by Zhaoyang Wang, Hieu Nguyen, and Jason Quisberth of the Department of Engineering of the Catholic University of America, and is available from the SPIE Digital Library.

The technique is based on the fact that sound waves are mechanical waves that cause air to vibrate when traveling, the paper notes. That vibration through air can cause vibration of objects located in its traveling path, especially if the objects are lightweight, thin, and flexible, such as a piece of paper. The vibrations, although usually with small amplitudes, can be detected and analyzed algorithmically, and audio reconstructed based on those calculations.

The authors used a subset-based image-correlation approach to detect the motions of points on the surface of an object, capturing target images with a high-speed camera and applying the Gauss-Newton algorithm and a few other measures to achieve very fast and highly accurate image matching. Because the detected vibrations are directly related to sound waves, a simple model was used to reconstruct the original audio information of the sound waves.

While other recent work in the area reports on more sophisticated techniques to compute motion signals, the authors chose a simpler image-matching approach to measure vibration. Because light can travel through air considerably farther than sound and can pass through glass, they anticipate that the technique may find applications such as the passive detection of conversations inside of a building from a far distance, Wang said. "We are currently improving the technique to increase its accuracy and sensitivity, make the measurements in real-time, and remove interference from other sources."

Explore further: Algorithm recovers speech from vibrations of potato-chip bag filmed through soundproof glass

Soundlazer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6751mqTsgCo

Quiet Victories Won In the Loudness Wars - Slashdot

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/12/06/26/0022244/quiet-victories-won-in-the-loudness-wars
Stowie101 writes with a few pieces from an article on what's been happening in the fight against over-compressed radio music and deafening tv commercials: "The first major step towards the elimination of heavily-compressed music could be the International Telecommunications Union's ... measurement of loudness that was ... revised in 2011. ... Acting to rectify the problem on the broadcast side of the issue, many European and Asian broadcasters are adopting loudness standards that are based on the criteria first introduced by the ITU. Here in the U.S., the federal government has also been proactive to improve the quality of broadcast television. By the end of 2012, the broadcast community will have to follow the CALM Act that requires commercials to be played at the same volume as broadcast television. In terms of music and recording, these broadcast standards do not apply. But Shepherd theorizes the measurement standards will be applied to the production of music. 'Measuring loudness, in general, isn't easy. Now the ITU has agreed on a new "loudness unit:" the LU. You can measure short- and longer-term loudness over a whole song. They've also agreed on guidelines for broadcast; what the average loudness should be and how much you can vary it. The recommendation has been made law in the U.S. for advertisements and is also being adopted in the U.K. and all over the world. All the major broadcasters here —Sky, the BBC, ITV —have agreed to follow the standard.'"

Music industry revenues

US Bans Loud Commercials

From Slashdot:

US Bans Loud Commercials

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 14, @06:11PM
from the turn-it-down dept.

bs0d3 writes"On Tuesday, the FCC passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, or CALM. It's a law that states all commercials must run at the same volume as network newscasts. The same applies to network promos. The responsibility falls on cable providers like Comcast or charter. The law will not take effect until next year which leaves it plenty of time to be challenged in court by cable providers or advertisers."

Echoprint: Open acoustic fingerprinting

Acoustic fingerprinting is now available on many mobile smartphones.

You have probably seen the basic scenario in television commercials many even tried it in person.

A user holds up a phone to capture a few seconds of audio playing nearby, and the application computes a "fingerprint" of the track, which is then used to query a remote database for the mystery artist and track name.

The space has been dominated by proprietary software, but a new open source project was unveiled last week, Echoprint.

Equation: The Formula Behind Noise-Cancelling Headphones

http://m.wired.com/magazine/2011/05/st_equation_noisecanceled/

Mini-toslink S/PDIF audio

Many laptops are starting to support mini-toslink.

 

I think this is the coolest thing because it supports legacy analog stereo audio, as in your old head phone jack, 1/8 mini, and also spdif optical digital audio using the same connector.

It can send up to 125 Mbit/s of perfect digital audio.
5.1 Surround sound, Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, and DTS HD audio streams.

Up to 48 kHz sample rates with 24 bit digital audio.

As good as any professional could ask for.

The connector on the left is a mini-toslink to toslink optical adapter, and on the right is a 1/8 mini analog audio jack.

Notice the transparent plastic optical pipe in the center.

More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSLINK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS_connector
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-TOSLINK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spdif

This one is interesting, some poor guy had the end connector break off.
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/apple-desktops/65625-mini-toslink-broke-inside-audio-jack.html