PULSE-IT: Lightweight and Expressive Synthesis of Wind Instrument Playing

Christian Dittmar, Johannes Zeitler, Stefan Balke, Simon Schwär, Meinard Müller

Primary Subject: Software/Library Demo

Abstract:

Wind instruments enable highly expressive performances through playing techniques such as vibrato, slurs, and growl. In this demo, we introduce PULSE-IT, a lightweight synthesis method that combines simple signal processing components with data-driven control signals. Based on a pulsetable oscillator and time-variant filtering, PULSE-IT supports both re-synthesis and cross-synthesis (timbre transfer) of expressive wind instrument playing at low computational cost. Despite its simplicity, the method yields convincing results and provides a practical alternative to more complex neural approaches. Audio examples and interactive visualizations are available at our accompanying website.