Real-time physical models of musical instruments: Applications and findings

Abstract

Real-time auralization of physical models has attracted vivid interest over the last years. This is mainly due to the rising computational capabilities of personal computers and the accessibility of specialized (external) accelerating hardware, like GPGPUs (general-purpose graphics processing units) or FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays). In this work, an extended framework of real-time physical models of musical instruments, calculated with symplectic and multi-symplectic finite difference algorithms, on a FPGA is presented. The former study, as presented in earlier publications by the authors, is extended in three aspects: (a) A methodology for coupling FPGA boards via a highspeed general purpose IO, to facilitate calculations of larger instrument geometries, such as piano sound-boards, is implemented. (b) A generalized design structure for all models is developed. (c) An enhanced external interface communication protocol is realized. These extensions resulted in several new possible applications for music and for musicological research.