Papers for

music technology product designers

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

Synthesizer parameters create new controls for expressive audio effects

CTAG-FX: Reinterpreting Synthesizer Parameter Spaces for Expressive Tone-Shaping Audio FX Design

Abstract: Recent text-guided audio FX research has focused on translating natural-language descriptions into parameters or chain configurations within existing FX systems. However, comparatively little attention has been paid to how the internal control space of an individual FX processor can itself be constructed. To address this gap, we propose CTAG-FX, which functionally reinterprets the roles of 78 parameters in a text-conditioned synthesizer configuration as controls of a tone-shaping FX processor. Each synthesizer configuration defines a fixed tone-shaping processor that can be repeatedly applied to new audio inputs rather than producing only a one-off rendered output. The text-conditioned synthesizer configurations are generated using A&R-CTAG, a retrieval-enhanced extension of CTAG. We evaluate CTAG-FX through signal-level analysis, together with a scrambled-mapping ablation in which parameter-to-control assignments are randomly permuted to assess the contribution of the proposed role assignment. Role-based mapping produces prompt-distinct spectral and nonlinear behavior, whereas scrambling reduces this prompt-specific differentiation and yields a more prompt-insensitive nonlinear profile. Overall, these results suggest that synthesizer parameter spaces can serve not only as sound-generation spaces but also as design resources for constructing new audio-FX control spaces. Audio samples are available at https://taylor3527eg-hub.github.io/ctag-fx-platform-demo/.

Tue 6 OctSound
The gist
Making audio effects that sound good and match text descriptions is hard because the settings inside a single effect are often fixed. This paper shows how to reuse the controls inside a text-based synthesizer to shape audio effects that can be applied over and over to different sounds. The authors built CTAG-FX, which turns 78 synth parameters into a new kind of sound-shaping tool, and tested how changing the parameter roles affects the sound. Their tests show that carefully choosing how each parameter works helps create unique audio effects that match text prompts better than random assignments.
Open → 2610.08182v1

Co-designing drum gesture controls improves musician performance balance

Rescuing Performance from the Demo: Co-Designing Drum Gesture Mappings with a Percussionist

Abstract: Augmenting instruments with sensors and neural network mappings is a well-explored digital musical instrument design approach. While augmentations can create new expressive opportunities, they also exert aesthetic influence and can constrain musicians' gestural language, which, if left unchecked, can lead to technological capture. To examine this, we conducted a study with a professional percussionist, co-developing a gesture mapping toolkit and recording a ten-track album. Drawing on the concept of productive dissonance, our study aimed to hold the musician's aesthetic in tension with technological constraints. This, along with a practice-based reflective approach, supported the development of a continuous gesture recognition method for percussive mapping and surfaced insights into the design process. We identify knowing-when as a form of tacit knowledge that supported productive dissonance, and raise an open question: absent a musician's broader social context, how do we know whether a technology's influence is genuinely supporting their practice?

Tue 8 SeptHuman-Computer InteractionSound
The gist
Musicians using digital instruments sometimes find technology changes how they play in unwanted ways. The authors worked closely with a percussionist to create a system that recognizes drum gestures while respecting the musician’s style. By recording real music and reflecting on the process, they developed a method that balances the musician’s choices with the technology’s limits. They highlight how a musician’s sense of timing helps navigate this balance and ask how to tell if tech really supports a musician without knowing their full context.
Open → 2609.08587v1