Modeling between-partial components for musical timbre imitation and migration

Most musical sounds have strong and regularly distributed spectral components such as harmonic partials. However, the energy distribution patterns between any two such sonic partials, the in-between low-energy signal patterns such as performance articulation or instrument signatures, are also important for characterizing musical sounds. This paper presents a timbre-modeling framework for detecting and modeling the between-partial components for musical timbre analysis and synthesis. This framework focuses on timbre imitation and migration for electronic music instruments, where timbral patterns obtained form acoustical instruments are reinterpreted for electronic instruments and new music interfaces. The proposed framework will help musicians and audio engineers to better explore musical timbre and musical performance expressions for enhancing the naturalness, expressiveness and creativeness of electronic/computer music systems.