Bob Lawlor

A Resource Management Tool for Implementing Strategic Direction in an Academic Department.

This paper reports on a load balancing system for an academic department, which can be used as an implementation mechanism for strategic planning. In essence, it consists of weighting each activity within the department and performing workload allocation based on this transparent scheme. The experience to date has been very positive, in terms of achieving strategic change and staff contentment.

Onset detection using comb filters

A technique for detecting note onsets using FIR comb filters which have different filter delays is presented. The proposed onset detector focuses on the inharmonic characteristics of the onset component and the energy increases of the signal. Both properties are combined by utilizing FIR comb filters on a frame by frame basis in order to obtain an onset detection function, which is suitable for detecting slow onsets. The proposed approach improves upon existing methods in terms of the percentage of correct detections in signals containing slow onsets.

Multi pitch estimation by using modified IIR comb filters

A technique for detecting the pitches of a polyphonic signal of presented. The system utilises modified IIR comb filters, which are generated to ensure that n null (stop band notches) exists at multiples of note frequencies, and that a very flat pass band is present in the remain of the spectrum. Thus, the signal spectrum is not distorted after applying the filters 60 the audio signal, which is the case when using FIR comb filters. The presented approach improves upon an existing multi pitch detection model bared on an FIR comb filter framework,

Onset based audio segmentation for the Irish tin whistle

A technique for segmenting tin whistle audio signals according to the position of the note onsets is presented. This method focuses on the characteristics of the tin whistle within Irish traditional music, customising a time-frequency based representation for detecting the instant when a note starts and releases. Musical ornamentation, such as cuts and strikes, are very common in Irish traditional music and are played during the onset stage. Taking advantage of this musical feature, a novel technique for improving the onset time estimation is also presented.

A novel efficient algorithm for music transposition

We present a novel efficient algorithm for scaling the frequency content of an audio signal by any desired factor in the range 0.5 (minus one octave) to 2.0 (plus one octave) enabling a recording to be played in any desired key without affecting the tempo. The algorithm uses an adaptive overlap-add (AOLA) technique to realise the desired frequency scaling without affecting the duration. Informal listening tests show output quality equal to that of a conventional overlap-add algorithm used in many commercially available systems, but offering significant computational saving relative to that algorithm. The algorithm can also be used to simultaneously change both the tempo and key of a recording.