CCRMA
Department of Music
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-8180
USA
tel: (650) 723-4971
fax: (650) 723-8468
info@ccrma.stanford.edu

CCRMA Summer Workshops 2009  

GENERAL INFORMATION
The Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics offers intensive programs where top educators and researchers from the fields of music, engineering, and computer science will present a detailed study of specialized subjects. Each workshop is one week long. The workshops are open to the public. Each day begins at 9:00 am and ends at 5:00 pm with an hour for lunch on your own.

IMPORANT NOTE
All workshop offerings subject to change or cancellation based on enrollment Any workshop with low enrollment will be cancelled one month prior to its start date.

TUITION AND FEES
Course tuition and fees will vary by location. Workshops located at CCRMA will be $650. Fees may be required for lab material.

ACADEMIC CREDIT
No academic credit is offered for participation in the workshops.

HOUSING
Housing costs are not included in the course fee. Stanford Campus housing is available on a limited basis for the summer workshops held at CCRMA through the Stanford University Conference Office. Register for housing soon at: Stanford Conference Services. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/rde/scs/individuals/stanfordnonstudent.html

A list of local hotels can be found here.

DIRECTIONS
Directions to the CCRMA Workshop held at the Knoll, 660 Lomita Drive, Stanford, CA can be found here: http://www.stanford.edu/home/visitors/maps.html

PARKING
Parking costs are not included in the course fee.  Parking information can be found at the Stanford Parking and Transportation website: http://transportation.stanford.edu

CONTACT
Tricia Schroeter
CCRMA Administrator
660 Lomita Drive
Stanford University
Stanford. CA  9305-8180
650-723-4971 x320
tricia@ccrma.stanford.edu

REGISTRATION
All workshops held at CCRMA require a $50 non-refundable registration fee. Register Now!

June 22 - 26: Physical Interaction Design for Music (PID)
June 29 - July 3: Intelligent Audio Systems: Foundations and Applications of Music Information Retrieval (MIR)
July 20 - 24: Signal Processing Techniques for Digital Audio Effects (DAE)
July 27-31: Sound Recording Workshop (Sound)
Aug 10 - 14: Perceptual Audio Coding (PAC)

The workshop also teaches technical skills for designing musical interactions. The workshop integrates programming, electronics, robotics, audio, and interactive music along with PID. Hands-on applications using sensors and microprocessors in conjunction with real-time DSP will be explored for making music. Specific technologies will include Arduino platform, processing, open sound control, and PD and/or Max/MSP for music synthesis. Participants will learn how to use resistive, force-sensitive, capacitative, optical, ultrasound, magnetic, optical, and acceleration sensors. We will also teach students how to make their own sensors with custom geometries constructed out of materials such as conductive fabric, piezoresistive fabric, copper tape, and piezoelectric PVDF. We will discuss popular controller components such as (multi-)touch screens, TacTex pads, Nintendo Wii, Novint Falcon, and many more. Participants will design and build working prototypes using a kit* that can be taken home at the end of the workshop. Many prototypes will be applicable for performance and exhibits. Further issues to be explored will include modes and mappings in computer music, exercises in invention, and applications of sensors and electronics to real-time music. The course will be augmented by a survey of existing controllers and pieces of interactive music.  

This workshop is intended for: Musicians or composers interested in exploring new possibilities in interactive music in a hands on and technical way; Anyone looking to gain valuable skills in basic analog and digital electronics, with a focus on invention; Makers, engineers, computer scientists, or product designers interested in exploring artistic outlets for their talents and collaborating with performers and composers.

Worskhop structure: The workshop will consist of half-day supervised lab sessions, and half-day lectures, classroom exercises and discussions. Classroom sessions will feature live demos and/or concerts of interactive music and instruments. Participants are encouraged (but by no means required) to bring their own laptop computers with any music software/hardware they already use. 

*NOTE: There is a $20 lab fee included in the cost of this workshop. Participants have the option of purchasing a $100 lab kit at the end of the workshop. The kit contains an Arduino, a prototyping board, power supply, data cable, and a variety of sensors. 

June 29-July 3
Intelligent Audio Systems: Foundations and Applications of Music Information Retrieval
Jay LeBoeuf, Kyogu Lee

Description: How would you "Google for audio", provide music recommendations based your
MP3 files, or have a computer "listen" and understand what you are playing?

This workshop will teach the underlying ideas, approaches, technologies, and practical design of intelligent audio systems using Music Information Retrieval (MIR) algorithms.

MIR is a highly-interdisciplinary field bridging the domains of digital audio signal processing, pattern recognition, software system design, and machine learning. Simply put, MIR algorithms allow a computer to "listen" and "understand or make sense of" audio data, such as MP3s in a personal music collection, live streaming audio, or gigabytes of sound effects, in an effort to reduce the semantic gap between high-level musical information and low-level audio data. In the same way that listeners can recognize the characteristics of sound and music - tempo, key, chord progressions, genre, or song structure - MIR algorithms are capable of recognizing and extracting this information, enabling systems to perform extensive sorting, searching, music recommendation, metadata generation, transcription, and even aiding/generating real-time performance.

This workshop is intended for: students, researchers, and industry audio engineers who are unfamiliar with the field of Music Information Retrieval (MIR). We will demonstrate the myriad of exciting technologies enabled by the fusion of basic signal processing techniques with machine learning and pattern recognition. Lectures will cover topics such as low-level feature extraction, generation of higher-level features such as chord estimations, audio similarity clustering, search, and retrieval techniques, and design and evaluation of machine classification systems. The presentations will be applied, multimedia-rich, overview of the building blocks of modern MIR systems. Our goal is to make the understanding and application of highly-interdisciplinary technologies and complex algorithms approachable.

Knowledge of basic digital audio principles is required.  Familiarity with Matlab is desired. Students are highly encouraged to bring their own audio source material for course labs and demonstrations.

Workshop structure: The workshop will consist of half-day lectures, half-day supervised lab sessions, demonstrations, and discussions. Labs will allow students to design basic ground-up "intelligent audio systems", leveraging existing MIR toolboxes, programming environments, and applications. Labs will include creation and evaluation of basic instrument recognition, transcription, and real-time audio analysis systems.

July 6-10 
Sound Synthesis and Digital Signal Processing in ChucK  
Perry Cook, Ge Wang  

Sorry, this course will not be offerred this summer.

July 20-24
Signal Processing Techniques for Digital Audio Effects
Jonathan Abel, David Berners

Description: Digital signal processing methods for audio effects will be covered, with emphasis on guitar applications. Topics will include techniques for equalization/filtering and distortion, as well as time-varying filtering effects such as chorus, flanging, and phasing. Attention will be given to digital emulation of analog processors.

This workshop is intended for: Musicians and recording engineers with an engineering background, and for engineers and computer scientists with an interest in music technology. An exposure to digital signal processing, including familiarity with digital filtering and the Fourier Transform is helpful. Some knowledge of Matlab and/or a modest amount of C programming experience are also helpful for the laboratory exercises.

Attendees are encouraged to bring a laptop to use for implementing the laboratory exercises. A limited number of workstations will be available onsite for use during the workshop.

Workshop structure: The course material will be presented in daily lecture sessions with laboratory exercises interspersed. The lecture sessions will concentrate on theoretical issues in the design of digital audio effects, and are complemented by laboratory work in which students will develop effects algorithms of their own design.

July 27-31
Sound Recording Workshop
Jay Kadis

Description:  The CCRMA Sound Recording Workshop is an intensive one-week course intended to familiarize students with modern studio techniques of recording, mixing and mastering. 

ProTools HD and Logic Studio recording systems will be available.  A range of popular microphones will be available and students will conduct the sessions with faculty supervision.  It is a hands-on experience offering students a chance to work with modern recording equipment in an excellent acoustical environment.  Class size is limited to 10.

This workshop is intended for: students with prior experience with digital recording software and microphone use, the course will examine issues involved in getting the best sound from microphones by careful selection and placement, audio mixer routing and gain structure, audio signal processing and digital recording technology.  It will cover recording and mixing techniques using software plug-ins and automation as well as a discussion of mastering issues. 

Workshop structure: The course will involve daily lectures followed by in-studio recording sessions, giving students a chance to employ the principles covered in the classroom.

August 10 - August 14
Perceptual Audio Coding
Marina Bosi, Richard Goldberg

Description:Perceptual audio coders are used in many applications including Digital Radio and Television, Digital Sound on Film, Multimedia/Internet Audio,
Portable Devices, and Electronic Music Distribution (EMD). This Workshop integrates digital signal processing, psychoacoustics, and programming to provide the basis for understanding and building perceptual audio coding systems.

The first part of the workshop presents the basic principles underlying all the core components of a perceptual audio coding system.  In the second part, design choices applied in state-of-the-art audio coding schemes, e.g. AC-3; MPEG Layers I, II, and III (MP3); MPEG AAC; MPEG-4 are presented.  In-class demonstrations will allow students to hear the quality of state-of-the-art implementations at varying data rates and they will be programming their own simple perceptual audio coder during the workshop.

This workshop is intended for: Musicians/composers interested in exploring widely used digital audio technology; Anyone looking to know more about media technology used in our every-day lives; Engineers/computer scientists/product designers interested in exploring the principles and practices of audio coding standards.

Workshop structure: The workshop will consist of half-day lectures, half-day supervised lab sessions, and classroom exercises and discussions. In addition to addressing basic theory and implementations, classroom sessions will feature state-of-the-art audio coding demos. Participants are encouraged (but by no means required) to bring their own laptop computers. Knowledge of basic digital audio principles and programming experience is expected.  The lab sessions will be carried out using Python -- a high level, easy-to-use programming language with syntax that will feel familiar to any programmer of C/C++, Java, or Visual Basic.  (Prior Python programming experience is not required or expected.)

Marina Bosi, Richard E. Goldberg are co-authors of the book, Introduction to
Digital Audio Coding and Standards.

©1996-2007 CCRMA, Stanford University. All rights reserved.
Created and maintained by Tricia Schroeter.