vibrato

Digital Signal Processing Framework for Java

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Vibrato

ci-build

Vibrato is a technique that musicians use to produce beautiful sounds from their instruments :-) … However, in the context of this project, Vibrato is an awesome (or soon to be so) digital signal processing framework for the Java programing language.

It is still in a very early stage of the development process. So, bear with me please :-)

Installation

Currently, there are no binary distributions for this framework. So, in order to use it, you would need to download the source code and build it on your own platform.

Prerequisites

Steps

$ git clone https://github.com/ghadeeras/vibrato.git your/path/of/choice/to/vibrato

Alternatively, you could download the source packed in a ZIP file from:

https://github.com/ghadeeras/vibrato/archive/master.zip

Then unpack it into your/path/of/choice/to/vibrato

$ cd your/path/of/choice/to/vibrato
$ set JAVA_HOME="path/to/jdk11/installation" # if not already set
$ chmod +x gradlew # if on a Linux machine
$ ./gradlew build

Upon successful execution of previous commands the vibrato library will be built in a JAR file inside the build/libs directory.

Running Included Examples

There are a few examples included in the source code, under the test root directory (see the examples section below). If you successfully built the framework as explained in the steps above, you could run the examples to verify the installation:

$ cd your/path/of/choice/to/vibrato # if not there already
$ set JAVA_HOME="path/to/jdk11/installation" # if not already set
$ ./gradlew collectLibraries # to copy some dependencies alongside the `vibrato` JAR.
$ chmod +x example # if on a Linux machine
$ example Doppler

The Doppler example (you could choose other examples as well) will play audio that sounds like a noisy source moving repeatedly towards and away from the listener.

Introductory Tutorial

In this brief tutorial, we introduce you to the basic concepts of a DSP system as built in Vibrato through a code walk-through of the NoisyFifth example available in the source code (under the tests root directory).

The Objective

Let’s say we want to build a system in which we: generate white noise (random signal), filter it through two, parallel, narrow-band filters, then output the two resulting signals to a stereo audio output device after applying some panning. The two filters will have their pass bands centered around the frequencies 293.66 Hz and 440.00 Hz.

A Side-Note: These frequencies happen to correspond to the middle D, and the middle A musical notes. Musicians refer to the “distance” between such notes as a “fifth” (since that distance comprises 5 notes: D, E, F, G, and A). Hence, the name of this example: NoisyFifth.

The Building Blocks

The building blocks (or DSP units), as inferred from the objective above, are: noise source, two band-pass filters, a mixer (for panning), and an audio output device (or an audio sink).

The DSP System

Imagine that the above-mentioned units are some electronic components that you need to assemble on an electronic board. The electronic board metaphor corresponds to the DspSystem class in Vibrato. So we need to extend the DspSystem class, and assemble all its units in its constructor:

public class NoisyFifth extends DspSystem {

    /**
     * @param audioFormat The audio format is a standard Java Audio API object that will be needed when constructing the
     * audio sink (i.e. the line to the output audio device).
     */
    public NoisyFifth(AudioFormat audioFormat) {
        super(audioFormat.getFrameRate()); // Here we declare the intended sampling frequency.
        // Assemble all DSP units here.
    }
    
}

One of the features that the DspSystem class affords is a DSL for connecting the various DSP units in a declarative way, as we will see.

The Noise Source

To declare a source, we use the from() method, which wires the source to the DspSystem and provides a starting point to build processing lines:

    var randomSource = from(RandomSource.uniform(sameSeed()));

The Band-Pass Filters

We need two filters around two frequencies. So let’s define a method that abstracts away all the other parameters needed in defining a band-pass filter:

    private DspFilter<RealValue, RealValue> bpf(double frequency) {
        return SecondOrderFilter.bpf(128, frequency, frequency / 440, 0.5);
    }

The two generic type parameters of DspFilter above indicate that this filter accepts a single real (scalar) value as input, and produces a single real value as output. In general, different filters could accept/produce other types, such as vectors. The arguments that we passed to the BPF are: gain, middle frequency, bandwidth, and cutoff gain.

The Panning Mixer

The panning mixer will mix the outputs of the two filters (i.e. a vector of two components) using a matrix of coefficients, to produce another vector of two components representing the two stereo channels of the final output:

    var panning = Mixer.matrix(new double[][]{
        {0.75, 0.25},
        {0.25, 0.75}
    });

The specified matrix has a row-major format to simplify the dot-product operations that the mixer performs.

The Audio Sink

The audio sink could be defined as follows:

    var audioSink = AudioSink.create(audioFormat);

The Wiring

We use the DSL methods that the DspSystem provides to wire all the components:

    join(
        randomSource.through(bpf(293.66 * zHertz)),
        randomSource.through(bpf(440.00 * zHertz))
    ).through(panning).into(audioSink);

A few points to note in the above few lines:

Powering Up the DSP System

The only remaining work is to bring the DSP system to life by connecting it to an oscillator. Using the same electronic circuit metaphor, the oscillator is similar to a Quartz clock that keeps the operations of a processor in sync:

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        var audioFormat = new AudioFormat(44100, 16, 2, true, false);
        var system = new NoisyFifth(audioFormat);
        
        // Connect to an oscillator
        var oscillator = MainOscillator.create();
        system.connectTo(oscillator);
        
        // Run the oscillator
        oscillator.oscillateUntil(DspApp::pressedEnter);
    }

Connecting to an oscillator is usually the last step in creating a DSP application. That is because a DSP System also happens to be an abstraction tool. The DSP system is itself a DSP unit that could be part of a bigger DSP system.

Conclusion

Design Considerations

Performance

One of the design objectives of this framework is to allow creating simple (but not too simple) audio processors that could work in real-time. This could be challenging in a language like Java (or in any language that allocates non-primitive data types in the heap rather than passing them on the stack, and that have garbage collectors that cannot be predictably controlled).

Given that instantiating and garbage-collecting is deemed detrimental to performance, in this documentation I will often refer to two terms that influenced the design of this framework:

Much like developers often refer to compile-time, and run-time, in this documentation I will make the distinction between construction-time, and processing-time. Both take place during runtime, but the former represents the bootstrapping of the signal processor, while the latter represents the time of actual processing of signals.

The rule of thumb that drove some aspects of the design, and the implementation, is that any object instantiation should take place during construction-time only. Processing-time should not cause the creation of any new instances.

Compose-ability

This means the ability to compose signal processing systems from fundamental units in a declarative way. The basic building blocks are the atomic implementations of DspUnit. Higher level systems would extend CompositeUnit or the richer DspSystem which provides a simple domain-specific language to connect DSP units in any desired configuration.

Abstraction/Re-usability

This is closely related to Compose-ability and refers to the ability to re-use a “composite” unit or sub-system in other even higher level systems. This is doable because CompositeUnit and its subclass DspSystem themselves implement DspUnit.

An example of this is the BasicInstrument which is composed of wave oscillators, generators, and other basic operators.

Multiple-Sampling Rate Support

If a DSP system involves up-sampling or down-sampling, or if it is a music synthesis system involving control signals which typically are sampled at much lower rate than audio signals, then the units of the system may be operating on different “clock speeds”.

The ability to inter-connect and orchestrate the work of such units influenced the design. The main consequence of this consideration is the two-phased implementation of stateful operations that DSP units use internally.

The two phases are:

So, DSP units, or their stateful operations, can be thought of as looking outwards during the reading phase, and looking inwards during the writing phase. This makes it possible to execute the operations in any order without worrying about a DSP unit changing its output before a dependant unit getting the chance to read the previous output.

The reading phase and writing phase can also be thought of as the up-edge and down-edge of a clock signal or pulse. The unit which provides these pulses is the Oscillator. There are two kinds of oscillators:

Examples

To see how the framework can be used to construct simple audio applications, some samples can be found in the test directory. To follow is a brief description of the examples:

Digging Deeper

To learn more, explore the various packages that comprise the project: