Signal Processing for Audio Technology

Lecturers: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bernhard U. Seeber
Practical course: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bernhard U. Seeber; Ľuboš Hládek Dr. Ph.D.; Payman Azaripasand, M.Sc.; Huayue Zhang
Semester: Summer semester
Target group: Practical course, Master EI, MSCE, MSNE,
Students and PhD candidates of the GSN and BCCN Munich.
The lecture is held in English.
ECTS: 8
Breadth: 2/0/4 (Lecture/Exercise course/Practical training)
Exam: oral and written (computer code)
Time & Location: Lecture (in English): Tuesday,  11.30 - 13.00 hours, N3815
Practical training:    Monday,    11:45 - 14:45 hours, -1947 (Eikon)
or Thursday,   13:15 - 16:15 hours, -1947 (Eikon)
Start Lecture starts on 18.04.2023; no lecture on 29.05.2023
Practical course thursdays from 20.04.2023, mondays from 24.04.2023;
no practical course on: Monday, 01.05.23, 29.05.23; Thursday, 18.05.23, 08.06.23

Registration

To attend this course, it is necessary to register separately for the lecture and for the lab course. Both registrations must be done via TUM-Online, but please register only for one of the lab sessions (Monday or Thursday)!

Topics

The module consists of a lecture and a practical part. The following topics are part of the lecture:

  • AD-DA conversion (sampling), z-transformation, rate conversion, DFT
  • Fundamentals of real-time processing: blockwise convolution with DFT (overlap-add/overlap-save)
  • Filtering of audio signals: IIR and FIR filters, equalizers (high pass, low pass, band pass and shelving filters), auditory filters (BARK filterbank, ROEX, Gammatone)
  • Inverse filtering for spectral equalization
  • Dynamic range adjustment: compression and limiting, attack and release time constants, distortions, multiband compression
  • Music effects: Echo, chorus and phase effects (flanger, phaser), distortion, gateing, wah-wah, tube amplifier
  • Vocoders for speech and music (Time stretching, pitch shifting, whisperization)
  • Directional microphones: Beamformer
  • Binaural technology: measurement and application of head-related transfer functions and room impulse responses for auralization
  • Simulation of room reverberation
  • Sound synthesis.

In the practical part students will individually solve programming assignments which cover basic methods for audio signal processing in a practical context. The topics will be selected from the lecture, for example implementations of music effects, dynamic compressors, or binaural synthesis. Besides methods for audio processing the module will teach programming skills in Matlab.