Computational Acoustic Modeling Laboratory - projects
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/
2026-04-23T04:58:16+00:00Computational Acoustic Modeling Laboratory
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=favicon.icotext/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)adsm
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:adsm&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Analysis and Design of Saxophone Mouthpieces
Participants: Song Wang and Gary Scavone
Period: 2018 - ongoing
----------
Summary
The mouthpiece is one of the key components of a saxophone in determining its sound and playability. However, the design of mouthpieces is still highly based on empirical approaches due to the lack of scientific analyses linking variations of geometry to corresponding changes in sound quality or response. The goal of this project is to better understand the relatio…text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)bars
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:bars&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Idiophone Bar Shape Optimization Using FEM
Participants: Douglas Beaton and Gary Scavone
Period: 2019 - ongoing
----------
Summary
The bars of marimbas, vibraphones, xylophones and other similar instruments are tuned by carving an “undercut” or “cutaway” on a bar’s bottom surface. For lower notes on an instrument, it is common practice to tune three vertical bending modes such that their frequencies form harmonic relationships. Other modes, such as torsional and lateral flexural modes are t…text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)bem
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:bem&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Boundary Element Modeling for Acoustic Systems
Participants: Simon de Leon
Period: 2006 - 2007
----------
Summary
A technique based on the boundary element method for the numerical simulation of three-dimensional linear acoustic systems is presented. Using surface meshes generated bytext/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)brass
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:brass&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Brass instrument acoustics
Participants: Miranda Jackson and Gary Scavone
Period: 2021 - ongoing
----------
Summary
A study involving modelling and measuring the impedance of various parts of a brass instrument and the brass mouthpiece, with the goal of being able to model the full instrument, evaluate the effect of minor changes, and to optimize the design.text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)direc
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:direc&rev=1748887889&do=diff
High-resolution measurement and simulation of sound source directivity
Participants: Esteban Maestre, Gary P. Scavone
Collaborator: Julius O. Smith
Period: 2018 - ongoing
----------
Methods are proposed for measuring and simulating the free-field, frequency-dependent directivity of linear sound sources for use in real-time within geometric acoustic environments. Measurements are obtained by means of a high-resolution microphone array providing 4320 measurement on a sphere around the sound s…text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)fem
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:fem&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Finite Element Modeling of Woodwind Air Columns
Participants: Antoine Lefebvre, Jean Kergomard and Gary Scavone
Period: 2009 - 2015
----------
Summary
The goal of this research is to use the Finite Element Method to investigate the acoustic characteristics of woodwind instrument air columns. Particular analyses have included woodwind toneholes and the derivation of one-dimensional transfer matrix representations, external tonehole interactions and the junction of a cylinder and a truncated …text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)frm
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:frm&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Free Reed Modeling and Sound Synthesis
Participants: Ninad Puranik and Gary Scavone
Period: 2021 - ongoing
----------
Summary
The harmonium, ubiquitous to Hindustani music, is also amongst its most controversial instruments. Being a free-reed instrument that uses a standard western keyboard interface, it can only produce 12 discrete notes per octave. It is thus incapable of rendering the microtonality and continuous pitch ornamentations essential to Hindustani music. Yet, due to various mus…text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)ir
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:ir&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Acoustic Measurement Techniques
Participants: Antoine Lefebvre, Alexander Buckiewicz-Smith, Jonathan Abel and Gary Scavone
Funding: NSERC Discovery Grant
Period: 2005 - 2015
----------
Summary
This research involved explorations with different techniques for measuring the linear acoustic response of wind instruments. CAML currently has a custom-built six-microphone impedance probe (zProbe) designed by former student Antoine Lefebvre, as well as the CapteurZ impedance measurement system fro…text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)laptop
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:laptop&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Alternative Interfaces for Laptop Performance
Participants: Mark Zadel
Period: 2005 - 2012
----------
Summary
Different Strokes is a software system for performing music on a computer. It aims to allow a performer to create much of his or her performance sequences on-stage instead of relying on prepared control material. The program resembles a freehand drawing application. The drawn strokes create animated figures whose motion is mapped to sample playback. The musician performs by assembli…text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)lbm
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:lbm&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Lattice Boltzmann Modeling of Acoustic Systems
Participants: Shi Yong, Andrey da Silva and Gary Scavone
Period: 2005 - ongoing
----------
Summary
The mechanisms of sound production in single-reed woodwind instruments are not yet fully understood. Rather than being simply explained by the coupling between the reed and the acoustic field within the bore, the characteristics of the sound seem to be strongly influenced by phenomena associated with the presence of the airflow driven by the playe…text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)mouthbox
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:mouthbox&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Mechanical Wind Player Development
Participants: Connor Kemp, Song Wang, Vincent Turcotte and Gary Scavone
Period: 2018 - ongoing
----------
Summary
An artificial wind player system is in development to support research on several topics, including:text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)nm
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:nm&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Experiments / Analyses of Composite Materials in String Instruments
Participants: Negin Abaeian, Ye Lu, Gary Scavone and Larry Lessard
Period: 2012 - 2013
----------
Summary
Since 2008, we have conducted several collaborative investigations with Dr. Larry Lessard in the Structures and Composite Materials Laboratory, Mechanical Engineering Department, McGill University, investigating the use of composite materials to replace various parts of string instruments. The work conducted in CAML foc…text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)par
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:par&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Efficient Sound Synthesis by Recursive Digital Filters in Parallel Form: Virtual Musical Instruments and Artificial Reverberation
Participants: Esteban Maestre, Gary P. Scavone
Collaborators: Julius O. Smith, Jonathan S. Abel
Period: 2014 - ongoingtext/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)ped
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:ped&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Assistive Technologies for Music Pedagogy
Participants: Alberto Acquilino and Gary Scavone
Period: 2020 - ongoing
----------
Summary
This project aims at developing technologies and signal processing methods to assist students in learning to play wind music instruments.
Learning to master a musical instrument involves different technical features that still have to be addressed by music technologies, such as facility with timbre, dynamics, steadiness of tone, attack and release precision an…text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)pms
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:pms&rev=1748887889&do=diff
String Instrument Measurements and Modeling
Participants: Esteban Maestre, Hossein Mansour, Vincent Fréour and Gary Scavone
Period: 2011 - ongoing
----------
Enhanced Bowed-String Simulations
Despite having existed in their present form (for the most part) for over 400 years, bowed-string instruments remain the subject of active research in the musical acoustics community. While their general behaviour is reasonably well understood, measurable properties that can be used to distinguish inst…text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)rmm
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:rmm&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Microstructural Modeling and Characterization of Reeds
Participants: Connor Kemp and Gary Scavone
Period: 2013 - ongoing
----------
Summary
From the player’s perspective, there are three primary components that make up a woodwind instrument: the body (or air column), the mouthpiece, and the reed. Each is important but only the reed is changed frequently, due to poor performance and/or decay over time. Thus, it is the reed that the musician spends the most time evaluating or adjusting and th…text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)sax
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:sax&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Woodwind Instruments Design Optimisation
Participants: Antoine Lefebvre and Gary Scavone
Period: 2005 - 2012
----------
Summary
This research was focused on the design of woodwind instruments with improved acoustical and mechanical characteristics, accomplished with the aid of new materials, physical modelling, impedance measurements, and collaborations with professional musicians. It included experiments to characterize the influence of important acoustical parameters in assessing the qual…text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)siio
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:siio&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Saxophone Input Impedance Online
Participants: Tristan Matthews and Gary Scavone
Funding: NSERC Discovery Grant
Period: 2007
----------
Summary
The response of complex air columns, as found in woodwind instruments, can be approximated by a one-dimensional lumped model composed of cylindrical and conical segments. The tonehole transmission matrix elements proposed by Keefe (1981) can also be used in conjunction with this model to determine the input impedance of a given instrument for any f…text/html2025-07-03T13:44:26+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)vib
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:vib&rev=1751550266&do=diff
Vocal Vibrato Analysis and Pedagogy
Participants: Theodora Nestorova, John Mac Master, Isabelle Cossette and Gary Scavone
Period: 2021 - 2025
----------
Summary
This dissertation presents a cross-disciplinary compendium of acoustic, perceptual, and biomechanic studies on naturally-occurring, time-varying vocal vibrato across several musical genres. Vibrato is a complex, multi-factorial feature tied to singing technique and artistry that is both volitionally and non-volitionally controlled b…text/html2025-06-02T18:11:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)vln
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:vln&rev=1748887889&do=diff
Perception of Music Instrument Qualities
Participants: Lei Fu, Charalampos Saitis, Pauline Eveno and Gary Scavone
Collaborators: Catherine Guastavino, Bruno Giordano, Claudia Fritz, Jean-François Petiot, Stephen McAdams
Period: 2008 - ongoing
----------text/html2026-01-22T17:00:29+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)vti
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:vti&rev=1769101229&do=diff
Vocal Tract Influence in Wind Instrument Performance
Participants: Gary Scavone, Antoine Lefebvre, Andrey da Silva, and Vincent Freour
Funding: NSERC Discovery Grant
Period: 2005 - ongoing
----------
Summary
The role and influence of a performer’s vocal tract on the sound of reed-valve wind instruments has been a topic of some debate since the late 1970s. Musicians reported that they could affect the sound of their instruments, sometimes in very significant ways, via vocal-tract manipulati…text/html2025-06-29T20:06:01+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)wspp
http://caml.music.mcgill.ca/doku.php?id=projects:wspp&rev=1751227561&do=diff
Woodwind Synthesis, Playability and Parameter Modeling
Participants: Champ Darabundit and Gary Scavone
Period: 2022 - ongoing
----------
Summary
Despite the fundamental role musicians play in making music, there is a dearth of research on how a musician's physical actions translate to the acoustics of their instruments. Measuring these actions, called playing parameters, is particularly difficult in woodwind instruments due to the complexity of capturing data within a player’s mouth. Playin…