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NSynth
Machine learning audio synthesizer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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NSynth (a portmanteau of "Neural Synthesis") is a WaveNet-based autoencoder for synthesizing audio, outlined in a paper in April 2017.[1]
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Overview
The model generates sounds through a neural network based synthesis, employing a WaveNet-style autoencoder to learn its own temporal embeddings from four different sounds.[2][3] Google then released an open source hardware interface for the algorithm called NSynth Super,[4] used by notable musicians such as Grimes and YACHT to generate experimental music using artificial intelligence.[5][6] The research and development of the algorithm was part of a collaboration between Google Brain, Magenta and DeepMind.[7]
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Technology
Dataset
The NSynth dataset is composed of 305,979 one-shot instrumental notes featuring a unique pitch, timbre, and envelope, sampled from 1,006 instruments from commercial sample libraries.[8] For each instrument the dataset contains four-second 16 kHz audio snippets by ranging over every pitch of a standard MIDI piano, as well as five different velocities.[9] The dataset is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.[10]
Machine learning model
A spectral autoencoder model and a WaveNet autoencoder model are publicly available on GitHub.[11] The baseline model uses a spectrogram with fft_size 1024 and hop_size 256, MSE loss on the magnitudes, and the Griffin-Lim algorithm for reconstruction. The WaveNet model trains on mu-law encoded waveform chunks of size 6144. It learns embeddings with 16 dimensions that are downsampled by 512 in time.[12]
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NSynth Super
In 2018 Google released a hardware interface for the NSynth algorithm, called NSynth Super, designed to provide an accessible physical interface to the algorithm for musicians to use in their artistic production.[13][14]
Design files, source code and internal components are released under an open source Apache License 2.0,[15] enabling hobbyists and musicians to freely build and use the instrument.[16] At the core of the NSynth Super there is a Raspberry Pi, extended with a custom printed circuit board to accommodate the interface elements.[17]
Influence
Despite not being publicly available as a commercial product, NSynth Super has been used by notable artists, including Grimes and YACHT.[18][19]
Grimes reported using the instrument in her 2020 studio album Miss Anthropocene.[5]
YACHT announced an extensive use of NSynth Super in their album Chain Tripping.[20]
Claire L. Evans compared the potential influence of the instrument to the Roland TR-808.[21]
The NSynth Super design was honored with a D&AD Yellow Pencil award in 2018.[22]
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References
Further reading
External links
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