Interactively Evolving Compositional Sound Synthesis Networks

Björn Þór Jónsson, Amy K. Hoover, Sebastian Risi

Publikation: Konference artikel i Proceeding eller bog/rapport kapitelKonferencebidrag i proceedingsForskningpeer review

Abstract

While the success of electronic music often relies on the uniqueness and quality of selected timbres, many musicians struggle with complicated and expensive equipment and techniques to create their desired sounds. Instead, this paper presents a technique for producing novel timbres that are evolved by the musician through interactive evolutionary computation. Each timbre is produced by an oscillator, which is represented by a special type of artificial neural network (ANN) called a compositional pattern producing network (CPPN). While traditional ANNs compute only sigmoid functions at their hidden nodes, CPPNs can theoretically compute any function and can build on those present in traditional synthesizers (e.g. square, sawtooth, triangle, and sine waves functions) to produce completely novel timbres. Evolved with NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT), the aim of this paper is to explore the space of potential sounds that can be generated through such compositional sound synthesis networks (CSSNs). To study the effect of evolution on subjective appreciation, participants in a listener study ranked evolved timbres by personal preference, resulting in preferences skewed toward the first and last generations. In the long run, the CSSN's ability to generate a variety of different and rich timbre opens up the intriguing possibility of evolving a complete CSSN-encoded synthesizer.
OriginalsprogUdefineret/Ukendt
TitelProceedings of the 2015 Annual Conference on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation : GECCO '15
Antal sider8
UdgivelsesstedNew York, NY, USA
ForlagAssociation for Computing Machinery
Publikationsdato2015
Sider321-328
ISBN (Trykt)978-1-4503-3472-3
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2015

Emneord

  • compositional pattern producing network, compositional sound synthesis network, cppn neat, neuroevolution of augmenting topologies, sound synthesis

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