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Low-Latency Conversion of Audible Guitar Tones Into Visible Light Colors

Automated sound-to-color transformation system makes it possible to display the corresponding color map that matches the actual note played on the guitar at the same instant. One application of this is to provide intelligent color effect ‘light show’ for live instruments on stage during performance. By using time and frequency information of the input signal, a computer can analyze sound events and determine which tone is currently being played. The knowledge about guitar tone sound event being played on the audio input provides a basis for the implementation of a digital sound-to-light converter. The converter streams live audio input, analyzes frames based on the signal’s power threshold, determines fundamental frequency of the current tone, maps this information to color, and displays the targeted light color in real-time. The final implementation includes full screen presentation mode with real time display of both pitch and intensity of the sound.

Author: Osmanovic, Nermin
Affiliation: Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA
AES Convention:127 (October 2009) Paper Number:7859 Import into BibTeX
Subject:Production and Analysis of Musical Sounds

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