Edgar Berdahl's Web Page

Lecturer at CCRMA in the Music Department

Ph.D. Thesis Readers:
Julius O. Smith III (Music & EE) at CCRMA

Gunter Niemeyer (ME & EE) at the Telerobotics Laboratory

Kenneth Salisbury (CS & Surgery) at the Salisbury Lab

I'm currently teaching the Music 250A class, the New Music Controllers workshop, and the Stompbox Design workshop.

Peer-Reviewed Publications:

E. Berdahl. Applications of Feedback Control to Musical Instrument Design, PhD thesis,
337 pgs, Stanford University (CCRMA), Stanford, CA, December 2009.

B. Verplank and E. Berdahl. Assertive Haptics for Music, Proceedings of the Fifth International
Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, Funchal, Portugal, Jan. 23-26,
2011, pp. 25-29.

E. Berdahl and D. Harris. Smart Microphone for Howling Prevention: A context-aware audio device,
Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on Signal Processing Systems (SiPS), San Francisco Bay Area, CA,
Oct. 6-8, 2010, pp. 472-477.

E. Berdahl and D. Harris. Frequency Shifting For Acoustic Howling Suppression, Proceedings of the
13th International Conference on Digital Audio Effects, Graz, Austria, Sept. 6-10, 2010.

E. Berdahl, J. Smith III, and G. Niemeyer. Mechanical Sound Synthesis: And the New Application of
Force-Feedback Teleoperation of Acoustic Musical Instruments, Proceedings of the 13th International
Conference on Digital Audio Effects, Graz, Austria, Sept. 6-10, 2010.

C. Raffel, N. Kruge, D. Douglas, E. Berdahl, and W. Ju. The Lattice Harp: A New Hybrid
Instrument And Controller, Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference,
New York City and Stony Brook, NY, June 1-5, 2010, pp. 127-130.

E. Berdahl, G. Niemeyer, J. O. Smith III.
Using Haptics to Assist Performers in Making Gestures to a Musical Instrument,
Ninth International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression,
Pittsburgh, PA, June 4-6, 2009.

E. Berdahl, G. Niemeyer, J. O. Smith III.
Using Haptic Devices to Interface Directly with Digital Waveguide-Based Musical Instruments,
Ninth International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression,
Pittsburgh, PA, June 4-6, 2009.

E. Berdahl, G. Niemeyer, J. O. Smith III.
HSP: A Simple and Effective Open-Source Platform for Implementing Haptic Musical Instruments,
Ninth International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression,
Pittsburgh, PA, June 4-6, 2009.

E. Berdahl, H.-C. Steiner, and C. Oldham. Practical Hardware and Algorithms for Creating Haptic Musical Instruments,
Eighth International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression,
Genova, Italy, June 5-7, 2008, pp. 61-66.

E. Berdahl, J. O. Smith III. A Tangible Virtual Vibrating String,
Eighth International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression,
Genova, Italy, June 5-7, 2008, pp. 299-302.

E. Berdahl, B. Verplank, J. O. Smith III, and G. Niemeyer.
A Physically Intuitive Haptic Drumstick,
International Computer Music Conference, slides,
Copenhagen, Denmark, August 27-31, 2007, pp. 363-6.

E. Berdahl, J. O. Smith III.
Inducing Unusual Dynamics in Acoustic Musical Instruments,
2007 IEEE Conference on Control Applications,
October 1-3, 2007 - Singapore.

E. Berdahl, J. O. Smith III, Adrian Freed.
Active Damping of a Vibrating String,
6th International Symposium on Active Noise and Vibration Control,
September 18-20, 2006 - Adelaide, Australia.

E. Berdahl, J. O. Smith III.
Some Physical Audio Effects,
9th International Conference on Digital Audio Effects,
September 18-20, 2006 - Montreal, Canada.

M. Wright, E. Berdahl.
Toward Machine Learning of Expressive Microtiming in Brazilian Drumming,
International Computer Music Conference.
November 6-11, 2006 - New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

E. Berdahl, S. Backer, J.O. Smith III.
If I Had A Hammer: Design and Theory of an Electromagnetically-Prepared Piano,
International Computer Music Conference.
September 5-9, 2005 - Barcelona, Spain.

H.-G. Kim, E. Berdahl, N. Moreau, T. Sikora.
Speaker Recognition Using MPEG-7 Descriptors,
Eurospeech, September 1-4, 2003 - Geneva, Switzerland.

Other Publications And Presentations:

E. Berdahl, G. Niemeyer, J. O. Smith III.
A physically motivated room reverberation enhancement system that is
stable in any (dissipative) room: An application of sound portholes,
Joint 159th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and Noise-Con 2010,
April 19-23, 2010 - Baltimore, Maryland.

E. Berdahl, D. Harris, G. Niemeyer, J. O. Smith III.
An electroacoustic sound transmission system that is stable in any
(dissipative) acoustic environment: An application of sound portholes,
Joint 159th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and Noise-Con 2010,
April 19-23, 2010 - Baltimore, Maryland.

E. Berdahl, W. Ju, J. O. Smith III. Invited Talk.
Homemade Digital Musical Instruments,
Joint 159th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and Noise-Con 2010,
April 19-23, 2010 - Baltimore, Maryland.

E. Berdahl, G. Niemeyer, J. O. Smith III.
Haptic interaction for music with unrestricted freedom of the musician's motion:
promoting augmented interaction with physical tools,
Joint 159th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and Noise-Con 2010,
April 19-23, 2010 - Baltimore, Maryland.

E. Berdahl, G. Niemeyer, J. O. Smith III. Feedback Control of Acoustic Musical Instruments,
Technical Report STAN-M-120. CCRMA, Stanford University, June 26th, 2008.

E. Berdahl, G. Niemeyer, J. O. Smith III. Invited Talk.
Applications of Passivity Theory to the Active Control of Acoustic Musical Instruments,
Second joint conference of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA)
and the European Acoustics Association (EAA), also known as Acoustics '08, #1561,
June 29-July 4, 2008 - Paris, France.

E. Berdahl, G. Niemeyer, J. O. Smith III. Active Control of a Vibrating String,
Second joint conference of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA)
and the European Acoustics Association (EAA), also known as Acoustics '08, #3120,
June 29-July 4, 2008 - Paris, France.

N. Lee, E. Berdahl, G. Niemeyer, J. O. Smith III
Practical Implementation of Low-Latency DSP for Feedback Control of Sound in Research Contexts,
Second joint conference of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA)
and the European Acoustics Association (EAA), also known as Acoustics '08, #1842,
June 29-July 4, 2008 - Paris, France.

E. Berdahl, N. Lee, R. Cassidy, and J. O. Smith III.
REALSIMPLE: Combining physical REALity with SIMulations in Pedagogical Laboratory Experiments,
153rd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America,
June 4-7, 2007 - Salt Lake City, Utah.

E. Berdahl, J. O. Smith III.
PID Control of a Vibrating String,
153rd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America,
June 4-7, 2007 - Salt Lake City, Utah.

E. Berdahl, J. O. Smith III.
Estimating the State of a One-Dimensional Waveguide,
153rd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America,
June 4-7, 2007 - Salt Lake City, Utah.

Current
Projects

Haptic Drum (2008)

HSP for the NovInt Falcon (2009)

Tangible Virtual Vibrating String (2008)

RealSimple musical acoustics laboratory exercises (overview slides) (2006-7)

Active control of a vibrating string (2006)

Inducing unusual dynamics in acoustic musical instruments (2006)

Music:

When The Robots Get Loose
In this piece, Edgar explores mechanical sound synthesis by employing robots to play physical percussion instruments. There are five points of mechanical interconnection. At the first four points, a shaker, egg, tambourine, and snare drum are played by "slave" robots. The fifth point is the "master" robot that Edgar holds in his hand. He can play any of the physical instruments by teleoperating it through the master robot with force feedback. During teleoperation, the trajectory of the master robot is recorded into wavetable loops in Max/MSP. At later times during the piece, these loops are played back, providing for mechanical synthesis with an especially human feel, even when the loops are played back irregularly or at superhuman speeds. The piece also incorporates the Haptic Drum , which is a feedback-controlled woofer connected to an Indian percussion instrument synthesizer.

Recorded live using six microphones.

Sike!
Piece with haptically augmented drum set, feedback guitar, haptic synthesized drum, and synth controlled by Novint Falcon.

Mixing and mastering by Frankie Siragusa.

It's Like A Car
Multichannel recording of a live improvisation of the haptic drum and traditional percussion instruments including drum set, maracas, xylophone, egg, and FM radio. The haptic drum is programmed to trigger samples of Indian percussion instruments and spoken phrases.
CCRMA Transitions Concert, Summer 2009

Mixing, mastering, and traditional percussion instruments except egg by Frankie Siragusa.

Courses At Stanford:

ME 326: Telerobotics and Human-Robot Interactions
Music 250a: Physical Interaction Design For Music
Music 424: Signal Processing Techniques for Digital Audio Effects
EE 376B: Information Theory
EE 363: Linear Dynamical Systems
Music 321: Advanced Musical Acoustics
CS 229: Machine Learning
E 205: Introduction to Control Design Techniques
EE 141: Engineering Electromagnetics
STAT 217: Random Processes
STAT 218: Random Processes
EE 364: Convex Optimization
EE 367B: Applications of the Fast Fourier Transform
EE 373B: Neural Information Processing
EE 367A: Signal Processing Methods in Musical Acoustics
EE 373A: Adaptive Filtering
EE 376A: Information Theory
EE 263: Introduction to Linear Dynamical Systems
EE 278: Introduction to Statistical Signal Processing
Music 220a: Foundations of Computer-Generated Sound

Old Projects

Active damping of a vibrating string (2006)

Some physical audio effects (2006)

Machine learning of microtiming (2005)

Acoustic feedback cancellation for public address systems (2005)

Measuring impulse responses using adaptive filters (2004)

Digital image steganography of encrypted text (2003)

Sound recognition using lower-level descriptors from MPEG-7 (CSG) (2002-3)

Vowel recognition of .AU files using feed-forward neural networks (2002)

Pitch detection of musical signals (2002)

Calbot project for EE40 with pitch detection (2001)

Dodecahedral speaker array (2000-2001)

Vacuum tube amplifier (1999)