"Project Perilymph" is a technology I'm developing to enable anyone to use music software with nothing but a microphone and the sound of their melody.  It works with voice and instruments, transforming their sound instantly and continuously into live MIDI control over any virtual instrument.

Nerdspeak:  Perilymph uses no FFTs (at present) and can converge on a tone source within 5-10 wavelengths of its fundamental frequency.  Its pitch resolution is bounded only by SnR, and it can track vibrato in real-time.

Perilymph is still in development, but it's starting to look pretty promising!  Expect a Kickstarter in early 2014, and a release in the months after.

This recording was done in one take, with no editing, and I've got a cold.  So pardon if I sound a little sloppy!

Perilymph test demonstration 02 (in-development)

Fooling around with Perilymph when I should be sleeping.  The settings used here are pretty useless for making music but excellent for wasting time (and making nightmare carnival music).

The audio input was a higher-quality microphone than you hear in the recording, but this time I got them synchronized so the latency should be an accurate representation of analysis responsiveness (plus the MIDI processing latency of the synth, which I suspect was non-trivial).

Still several issues I need to resolve in the analysis and sequencing logic before it's where I want it...

Perilymph: Drunken Trumpeteer

Latency testing my real-time voice-to-MIDI software, "imitone", with a cheap laptop microphone.

This is an un-edited take depicting the program's actual accuracy and latency.  It's still in development, and will see further improvements prior to release.

The audio here is my voice and the output from my headphones, captured with a high-quality microphone separate from the one used for testing.  Instrument is Edirol Orchestral hosted in Ableton Live 8.  Audio is ASIO4ALL on Windows, with low-latency settings for both imitone and Ableton.

imitone latency test, Feb. 21

In this recording, imitone detects approximately 50 musical notes per second in a vocal trill and plays them back in real-time as xylophone strikes.  This indicates a latency significantly less than 20 milliseconds!

You can pre order imitone on Kickstarter:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/evanbalster/imitone-mind-to-melody

imitone -- Trill Test

As seen on BBC Click:  www.bbc.com/news/technology-27124962

The complete un-edited instrument audio from imitone's first-ever four-part live jam.  This unrehearsed demo featured five trained singers and myself hopping between microphones to experiment with transformations into brass, flutes, woodwinds and strings.

What you hear is the process of first-time learning and play with imitone.  As this recording proceeds, you'll hear the singers becoming more proficient.

This performance was made using an alpha version of imitone.  Expect further improvements to the technology before its release.

imitone "Quartet" jam (filmed at the BBC)

The haunting melody of the ferry MV Puyallup, recorded at midnight last night as the chill air of Puget Sound blasted the railings.  I met a crewman who shared my fascination with the sound...  He described how small holes drilled to add clamps to the railings caught the air like flutes.  The long pipes of the railings act as resonators, reverberating through the windward hull.

Keening of the ferry MV Puyallup

An update about imitone's latest phase of research and development.

Evan Balster

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