Ray Migneco
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My Thesis: Analysis and Synthesis of Expressive Guitar Performance
Education:
- BS Electrical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University 2005
- MS Electrical and Computer Engineering, Drexel University 2009
Bio:
I'm a PhD student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University. My research involves studying music, audio and entertainment technologies. In particular, I'm interested in:
- Signal Modeling for Creative Expression: There are many sound synthesis techniques based on well known models, but how can we incorporate high quality re-synthesis with expressive control for music creation?
- Signal Processing in Entertainment Applications: The ever-increasing specs of PCs make it possible to incorporate computationally-intensive audio processing in everyday applications (i.e. games, music discovery, social networking) to enhance the user experience, but implementing such signal processing algorithms require a certain amount of expertise. How can these algorithms be packaged and accessible to developers with various expertise?
Research Projects:
- Analysis-Synthesis of Guitar Expression - During performance, a guitarist employs specific techniques in order to convey expressive intentions for a desired effect. These intentions often correspond to simultaneous variation of the source (guitarist-string interaction) and the filter (resonant string) parameters. We propose modeling expression at the signal level by jointly estimating the source and filter parameters of plucked guitar sounds in order to achieve realistic re-synthesis while incorporating expressive intentions.
- ALF - Audio processing Library for Flash - An audio toolkit for Flash developers that allows for easy integration of sophisticated audio processing routines into Flash-based applications. The toolkit opens myriad possibilities for game development including audio processing effects, feature extraction, etc. which allow developers to design music-driven applications.
- Tone Bender - A collaborative, online game to educate K-12 students on musical timbre and collect human evaluation data on modified musical sounds
Publications:
- Y. E. Kim, T. M. Doll, and R. Migneco, "Collaborative online activities for acoustics education and psychoacoustic data collection," in IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, 2009. [PDF]
- R. V. Migneco, T. M. Doll, J. J. Scott, C. Hahn, P. Diefenbach and Y. E. Kim, "An Audio Processing Library for Game Development in Flash," in Proceedings of the ICE Games Innovation Conference, 2009. [PDF]
- T. M. Doll, R. V. Migneco, J. J. Scott and Y. E. Kim, "An Audio DSP Toolkit for Rapid Application Development in Flash," in Proceedings of the IEEE Multimedia Signal Processing Conference, 2009. [PDF]
- T. M. Doll, R. Migneco, and Y. E. Kim, "Online activities for music information and acoustics education and psychoacoustic data collection," in Proceedings International Conference on Music Information Retreival, 2008. [PDF]
Conference Posters:
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An Audio DSP Toolkit for Rapid Application Development in Flash - MMSP 2009 To address the inherent challenges in the integration of interactive audio processing into Flash-based applications, we have developed the DSP Audio Toolkit for Flash (DATF), which offers significant performance improvements over algorithms implemented in Java or ActionScript. By developing this toolkit, we hope to open up new possibilities for Flash applications and games, enabling them to utilize real-time audio processing as a means to drive gameplay and improve the experience of the end user. |
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Online Activities for Music Information and Acoustics Education and Psychoacoustic Data Collection - ISMIR 2008 We have created prototype interactive activities illustrating aspects of two different sound and acoustics concepts: musical instrument timbre and the cocktail party problem (sound source isolation within mixtures). These activities provide a method of collecting perceptual data related to these problems with a range of parameter variation that is difficult to achieve for large subject populations using traditional psychoacoustic evaluation. |
Presented Papers:
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An Audio Processing Library for Game Development in Flash - International Consumer Electronics Society Games Innovation Conference 2009, London, England, August 25-29, 2009 We presented our work on ALF at the first ever Games Innovation Conference in London England. For more information on ALF, follow this link. |
Drexel University Events:
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A Collaborative Activity for Musical Instrument Perception - Research Day 2009 An improved understanding of how humans perceive musical instrument sounds can lead to more efficient audio modeling techniques. Despite previous research, it is not clear how much an instrument’s timbre can be altered before it becomes unrecognizable. To better understand the factors determining perceptual boundaries of musical instruments, I have developed Tone Bender, an online, large-scale collaborative activity that collects data indicating human perception of musical instrument sounds. Players in Tone Bender earn points by modifying the timbre of an instrument while maintaining its identity or by correctly identifying instruments created by other players. Based on the game’s results, we can analyze deviations between the original and modified signals to determine perceptual boundaries for identifiability. |
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Online Acoustic Simulations for Education and Listener Evaluations - Research Day 2008 Online collaborative activities provide a powerful platform for the collection of psychoacoustic data on the perception of audio and music from a very large numbers of subjects. Furthermore, these activities can be designed to simultaneously educate users about aspects of music information and acoustics, particularly for younger students in grades K-12. |
Unpublished Works:
- R. Migneco, "Signal Modeling and Psychoacoustic Data Collection," a self-study report to fulfill the requirements of doctoral candidacy at Drexel University, 2009. [PDF]
Professional Societies:
- IEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
- Eta Kappa Nu, Electrical and Computer Engineering Honor Society
Relevant Course Work:
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