Dominic Ward
Name: Dominic Ward
Research Title: Application of auditory models and automatic music mixing systems
Name of Director of Studies: Professor Cham Athwal
Key Contact Details - Email: dominic.ward@bcu.ac.uk
About the Project: In recent years, researchers among the music signal processing community have turned to the development of intelligent mixing tools to perform fundamental mixing procedures automatically. This research aims to develop novel audio systems, driven by computational hearing models, for applications in mixing multichannel musical audio.
With sophisticated auditory models readily available, an opportunity arises in which one can employ them to inform the processing chain to perform operations that are very much influenced by masking and loudness perception, such as level balancing, equalisation and dynamics compression.
Research Activities:
- Listening experiments (2AFC, MUSHRA)
- Statistical analysis (ANOVA, MANOVA)
- Evaluation of perceptual loudness models
- Performance analysis/algorithm evaluation
- Digital filter design
Findings:
- Automatic multi-track music mixing incorporating sophisticated loudness models
- Optimised loudness models for efficient real-time performance
- Loudness matching experiments conducted with musical stimuli and evaluation of loudness models
Achievements: Ward D, Reiss J and Athwal C, "Multi-track mixing using a model of loudness and partial loudness", Audio Engineering Society (AES) 133rd Convention, San Francisco, 2012