Combining Instrument and Performance Models for High-Quality Music Synthesis

Convincing synthesis of wind instruments requires more than the reproduction of individual tones. Since the player exerts continuous control over amplitude, frequency, and other parameters, it is not adequate to store simple templates for individual tones and string them together to make phrases. Transitions are important, and the details of a tone are affected by context. To address these problems, we present an approach to music synthesis that relies on a performance model to generate musical control signals and an instrument model to generate appropriate time-varying spectra. This approach is carefully designed to facilitate model construction from recorded examples of acoustic performances. We report on our experience developing a system to synthesize trumpet performances from a symbolic score input.