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Smilen Dimitrov

Introduction

• Name: Smilen Dimitrov• Education:

– B.Sc. in Electronics & Telecommunications (2001, University "Sts. Cyril & Methoduis", Skopje, Macedonia)

– Multimedia designer degree (Aarhus Tekniske Skole, 2003)– M.Sc. in Medialogy (2004, Aalborg Universitet Copenhagen,

Denmark)– Currently - Ph.D. student in Medialogy, Aalborg Universitet

Copenhagen, Denmark

• Teaching areas at AAU Medialogy– "Sensor Technology" (4th semester, B.Sc. studies Medialogy)

www.smilen.net/st (spring semesters) – (discontinued) "Applied Statistics for Testing and Evaluation" (3rd semester,

B.Sc. studies Medialogy) www.smilen.net/stat (fall semesters)– (discontinued) “Cross-Sensorial Processing" (7th semester, M.Sc. studies

Medialogy) www.smilen.net/csp (fall semesters)

• Associated supervision of project groups, and per-semester project work assistance

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Smilen Dimitrov

Research work

• Research work is conducted in two main areas:

– Work on projects within Medialogy Sensors and Sound Group (media.aau.dk/mssg)

– Also within MSSG, the personal PhD project

– * plus whatever research necessary for the courses

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Smilen Dimitrov

PhD project

• On the possibilities for creative live performance using electronic audio sources

• PhD project, is one with an open-source and do-it-yourself aspect to it, and – will deal with audio processing on both hardware and software level.

• It is based on starting with a relatively older PC (say Pentium II), and then:

– Building own custom I/O cards – Building own physical interface (say with potentiometers, custom

sensors etc) – Installing a custom(ized) open-source OS

by which, the device would become an independent electronic music and signal processing instrument (or, in a sense, a digital audio workstation).

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Smilen Dimitrov

PhD project

• On the possibilities for creative live performance using electronic audio sources

• Premise: there are two interaction interfaces, not originally developed ofr musical application, that have become common in live performance of electronic music:– Fader surfaces: faders(sliders), each of whom represent a channel in

a song, can be rhythmically manipulated individually, to create song arrangement on-the-fly (multichannel sampler + mixer)

– Turntables: allow for fine control of playback time of a song, forward or reverse – however individual control of channels is no longer possible (analog; Final Scratch, Serato)

• Providing a platform (not currently available) that can technically support both ways of interaction simultaneously, may lead to development of novel ways of live performance of electronic music.

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PhD project

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Smilen Dimitrov

PhD project

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PhD project

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Smilen Dimitrov

PhD project

• In full context as a musical instrument:

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Smilen Dimitrov

PhD project

• Two main problem areas

– Technical (engineering) – come up with open source hardware and software, that can support the envisioned functionality

– User research – discover optimal physical interface design, and optimal software design, to facilitate ease of use among potential users

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Smilen Dimitrov

PhD project

• Subproblems (engineering)– Design of I/O cards– Design of a “basic” interface and functionality

• Interface inherited from several common machines• Functionality should be implemented through the customized

OS– Two-way (dual-boot) operating system

• “Slim” OS – when the device is to be used as musical instrument (no video drivers, minimal traditional system resources)

• “Normal” OS – most likely a version of Linux, that can access the custom hardware of the device

– Specifics of “basic” interface performance• Should be able to provide independent controls of “songs”,

that could be composed of several independent “channels”• Possibility to synchronise two separate compositions to two

separate time-sync obtained from record players (like in Final Scratch, Serato)

• - Design of custom sensors for musical interaction (i.e. 1D touch strip)

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Smilen Dimitrov

PhD project

• Design of a “basic” interface and functionality

– Interface inherited from several traditional machines• Pad bank – Akai MPC 2000• Sequencer – Roland TB 303• Dj Mixer – from DJ mixers (like Pioneer DJM 600)• Production mixer – from traditional mixing consoles

– “Production mixer” faders control a single track within a tune

– “DJ mixer faders” control entire tunes

– Control of separate tracks within a tune should be available at all times

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Smilen Dimitrov

PhD project

• Additional music-related problems

– Haptic feedback of per-channel audio through vibrating fader heads

– Design of custom interaction interfaces (like a 1D strip), and methods of their usage

– Development of audio physical models

• As research platform

– Could provide slightly cheaper and faster ways to perform sampling

– Could be useful especially in research that deals with audio-related data, demanding audio related sampling frequencies (44 KHz) for signals that possibly contain DC signals as well

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Smilen Dimitrov

PhD project – card development

• Research status: currently focus is on developing a custom I/O (sound) card– Regular I/O card, except with the possibility to turn coupling

capacitors (commonly found on soundcards) on inputs and outputs on and off from software

• Would allow high-speed sampling of signals that contain DC components

• First test – an ISA card with 8 bit inputs and outputs

– Old design taken from the net– Ancient technology, not directly usable, needed for better

education– Test of concept: – Needs old PC with ISA slots

• Problems – difficult to implement and etch yourself – thin tracks– Currently second version is developed

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Smilen Dimitrov

PhD project – ISA card prototype development

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Smilen Dimitrov

PhD project – ISA card prototype development

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Smilen Dimitrov

PhD project – ISA card prototype development

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Smilen Dimitrov

PhD project – ISA card prototype development

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PhD project – ISA card prototype - video

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Smilen Dimitrov

PhD project – card development

• Next in development: a PCI card, based on FPGA

– Designs available through opencores.org; also for card accessible through both USB and PCI

• Possibly there will be several types of I/O cards (for the DJ mixer, for several production mixer channel strips etc, generic I/O).

• After suitable I/O cards are development, one can proceed to building software and interface

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PhD project – time plan

• 5 year PhD – until 2011

• Sound (I/O) cards development– ISA card – finished and analyzed by end 2007– Start with work on PCI FPGA card – start at end 2007

• Development of PCI cards, and driver software – during 2008

• Software and control development – 2009 – “Slim OS” development– Start preparing a Linux variant for the “normal” OS and implement drivers

for custom hardware – Development of time-code for pressing on vinyl record, and corresponding

software for decoding and controlling audio, in both “slim” and “normal” OS mode

• User interface development - 2010 – Proper building of the hardware user interface– Finishing “slim” OS software – adapt to user interface– Finishing “normal” OS software – adding specific applications (or ports

thereof)