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<H2>The computational expense of Tao's synthesis engine</H2>
<B>Tao</B> takes what has been referred to as the `brute force' approach to physical
modelling and as such is not as efficient as some of the digital waveguide
models developed by Julius Smith et al. However at the time of designing <B>Tao</B>
I made a conscious decision to steer away from the obsession with real-time
performance and look at what would be possible if I just concentrated on the
conceptual structure of the system. First and foremost I wanted to design
a system which made instruments which were tangible objects. As a musician
I am accustomed to being able to experiment with sound in a direct,
physical and intuitive manner and having a system which was capable
of visualising the instruments was quite high on the list of priorities.
At least if I couldn't actually get my hands on the instruments I could
see them, which would in turn fuel my imagination for things to try out.
<P>Real instruments such as stringed or percussion instruments have a wonderful
property that their 'user interface' is spatially distributed, and more
importantly, doing things to the instrument at different spatial locations
leads to markedly different timbral results.
<P>In my DPhil thesis I argued that details which make a huge difference to the
aesthetic appeal of the sounds produced from a physical model are often simply
missed out in the name of real-time performance. I do not make any great
claims about my model being so much more mathematically accurate than any
others simply because it needs more processing power, but one
thing I would say is that in the majority of cases musicians and composers
who have heard the sounds which <B>Tao</B> is capable of producing have commented
on their <EM>organic</EM> and inherent musical qualities, which cannot be a bad
thing. Besides, with the exponential growth in computing power, the number
crunching needed by <B>Tao</B> simply may not be an issue in the near future.
<P>The calculations employed to animate the model are described in detail in
my thesis. As they stand I am sure that improvements could be made in the
name of efficiency and optimisation although they have already been optimised
to an extent. There may be ways in which the efficiency could be radically
improved without compromising the quality of the sounds produced and indeed
I would be very interested to hear any ideas from individuals more mathematically
skilled than myself. <B>Tao</B> is based upon mathematical skills I picked up at
school level, so there should be room for improvement!
<P>
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<tr><td colspan="3" class="addr"><!-- bottom panel --><ADDRESS><FONT SIZE=-1>©1999,2000 Mark Pearson
<A HREF="mailto:m.pearson@ukonline.co.uk">m.pearson@ukonline.co.uk</A> April 30, 2000</ADDRESS><BR></td></tr><!-- end bottom panel --></table></BODY></HTML>
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