MIT Student Uses Mathematics To Make The Perfect Music | Amazing - Wonderful Engineering

An MIT student has come up with an algorithm that can create a portamento effect.

Optimal transport

This is the name given to the effect of gliding a note at one pitch into a note that is either of a higher or lower pitch between any two audio signals in real-time. The algorithm has been based on ‘optimal transport.’

During testing, the algorithm was able to merge different audio clips together seamlessly. The algorithm is based, as mentioned before, on optimal transport. What is the optimal transport you ask? It is a geometry-based framework that was formulated back in the 1700s that can ascertain the most efficient methods of moving objects between different origin and destination settings.

The algorithm has been created by Trevor Henderson, who is a graduate student in computer science. He said, ‘Optimal transport is used here to determine how to map pitches in one sound to the pitches in the other. If it’s transforming one chord into a chord with a different harmony, or with more notes, for instance, the notes will split from the first chord and find a position to glide to in the other chord seamlessly.’...

Check out the video below to learn more about this amazing algorithm by this MIT graduate.

Using math to blend musical notes seamlessly 


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Source: Wonderful Engineering and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Channel (YouTube)