COSC 4F90 Proposal

Title: Audio filters for Cubase VST
Proposer:  Brian Ross
Hardware: Pentium
Software: Visual C/C++, Steinberg Cubase VST
Prerequisites: An interest in digital audio
Description:

In digital audio, sound waves are represented as sequences of numbers. 
These sequences can be mathematically manipulated. For example, multiplying
a sequences by 2 amplifies the audio wave, while multiplying it by
0.5 reduces its volume. Much more complex filters can be applied to audio
signals, resulting in a variety of useful effects. For example, band-pass
filters can be created which only permit particular ranges of the audio
signal to be emitted, hence "muting" desired portions of the audio. This might
be useful for removing "hiss" from a digital recording. Other effects can
cause quite pronounced changes to the sound, for example, reverb, echo, and
phase shifting.

This project involves writing a set of digital signal processing (DSP)
functions which can be used to manipulate digital audio data.
The modules will take the form of plug-ins to Steinberg Cubase VST, a
popular commercial music system for Windows. The students will survey the
literature on digital signal processing, and will select a variety of 
interesting audio effects to implement. These effects should be implemented
with suitable user-settable parameters in a GUI environment.
There exists software and documentation for writing plugins for Cubase VST,
and much literature on digital audio.