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    The fundamental principle of IRCAM is to encourage productive interaction among scientific research, technological developments, and contemporary music production. Since its establishment in 1977, this initiative has provided the foundation for the institute’s activities. One of the major issues is the importance of contributing to the renewal of musical expression through science and technology. Conversely, sp…

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  • Research

    The fundamental principle of IRCAM is to encourage productive interaction among scientific research, technological developments, and contemporary music production. Since its establishment in 1977, this initiative has provided the foundation for the institute’s activities. One of the major issues is the importance of contributing to the renewal of musical expression through science and technology. Conversely, sp…

    • Research Topics
    • The STMS Lab
    • Research Teams
    • Sound Systems and Signals: Audio/Acoustics, InstruMents
    • Acoustic and Cognitive Spaces
    • Perception and Sound Design
    • Sound Analysis-Synthesis
    • Sound Music Movement Interaction
    • Musical Representations
    • Analysis of Musical Practices
    • Projects
    • Sound Workshop
    • The Musical Body
    • Creative Dynamics
    • Musique/Sciences Collection
  • Creation

    IRCAM is an internationally recognized research center dedicated to creating new technologies for music. The institute offers a unique experimental environment where composers strive to enlarge their musical experience through the concepts expressed in new technologies.

    • Composers & Artists in Studio
    • In Ex Machina
    • Jazz Ex Machina
    • Improvise cum machina 1/2
    • Improvise cum machina 2/2
    • Like Sound, Like Flesh
    • Silent Talks
    • Music-Fictions
    • Tablado
    • Musical creation around Outer Space
    • Campo Abierto
    • Musical creation around Dream Work
    • Biotope
    • EROR
    • IDEA
    • Artistic Research Residency
    • Artistic Residencies: The Blog
    • Rendez Vous 20.21
    • Season 2021.22
    • Seasons from 1996 to present
    • ManiFeste-2022
    • ManiFeste festival from 2012 to 2022
    • L’Étincelle, IRCAM’s journal of creation
  • Transmission

    In parallel to its fundamental missions of research and creation, IRCAM is committed to sharing its knowledge and know-how, its technologies with the general public. Cutting-edge research and diffusion of innovations, an international reference for education and the democratization of artistic practices are the driving forces behind the institute’s educational activities.

    • 2022.23 Training Courses
    • Max, Max for Live
    • OpenMusic
    • Modalys
    • TS2 and Partiels
    • Sound spatialization
    • From PureData to audio plugins
    • Sensors, Interfaces, and Interactive Machine Learning
    • Other training programs
    • Practical Information
    • Advanced Programs
    • Cursus Program on Composition and Computer Music
    • Supersonic Chair
    • Master ATIAM
    • Sound Design Master's Program
    • Music Doctorate
    • AIMove Master
    • School Programs
    • Studios of Creation
    • Mixed-Music
    • Artistic and Cultural Education
    • Career Discovery Visit
    • Art School Reserach and Creation Workshop
    • Images of a Work Collection
    • ManiFeste-2022, the Academy
  • Innovations

    At the center of societal and economic concerns combining culture and information technologies, the current research at IRCAM is seen by the international research community as a reference for interdisciplinary projects on the sciences and technologies for sound and music, constantly exposed to society’s new needs and uses.

    • The IRCAM Forum
    • Subscribe to the Forum
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Orchestration Assistance

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Tool to assist orchestration that is integrated in the software created at IRCAM
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The Orchestration project is an integral part of Sample Orchestrator.

It hopes to provide composers with a tool to assist orchestration that is integrated in the software environments created at IRCAM to assist composition, such as OpenMusic. By taking advantage of the knowledge acquired through large databases of instrumental sounds—taking into account the breadth of the possibilities of musical instruments—and the progress in the understanding of pitch, we hope to help composers explore the array of sound possibilities available with an orchestra. The problem consists of finding the combinations of instrumental sounds that are the closest to a target defined either from a recorded sound or from a more abstract process (overlapping pitches, for example) via a search by similarity defined by the user.

The major scientific issues lie, from a signal analysis point of view, in the choice of a group of ‘characteristics’ that can be calculated from samples of instrumental sounds, pertinent in terms of their timbre description, and that make it possible to predict—without having to listen or to analyze—the timbre of an overlapping of sounds. The chosen approach consists of incorporating the knowledge gained from the analysis of large sound databases and a set of "instrument models", making it possible to estimate the probability that a certain sound will be played by an instrument or by a group of instruments.

For the time being, this is limited to static harmonic sounds and to periodic temporal vibrations (such as a tremolo or a vibrato) but in time the application will be improved to the point where will work for all types of sounds.

Another issue concerns the management of the combinatorial analysis adapted to the manipulated data, the complexity of the problem makes it impossible to assess the range of possible solutions. The method currently being explored through an interactive environment lets us offer a group of solutions to a composer, in a reasonable time frame, where certain zones of research could be favored over others that are less likely to lead to interesting solutions.

The search for an orchestration therefore becomes an iterative process, during with pertinent solutions and user preferences surface simultaneously. Technically speaking, the interesting solutions are close to a multi-criteria Pareto distribution optimization problem.

IRCAM's Teams: Music Representations team, Sound Analysis & Synthesis team.

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