Realtime Software Synthesis for Psychoacoustic Experiments

New realtime sound synthesis software will allow psychoacoustic researchers to efficiently design and implement sophisticated test instruments that involve realtime interactivity with test subjects. Such interaction in psychoacoustic experiments has historically been constrained by the same limitations affecting realtime sound synthesis. A new model for sound synthesis, made possible through recent advances in computer hardware, supports software that synthesizes CD-quality audio in realtime and can base this synthesis on realtime user interactivity. We demonstrate this new software-based model in experimental settings, and discuss its nature and abilities. Because of the large amount of information required to describe CD-quality sound, and the time-sensitive nature of sound production, synthesis software for personal computers has not been primarily designed to perform realtime sound synthesis. Continuous data have not been easy to incorporate into current or subsequent stimuli. Thes..