Rethinking audio production tools

Potential users of audio production software, such as equalizers and reverberators, may be discouraged by the complexity of the interface and a lack of clear affordances in typical interfaces. We seek to simplify interfaces for audio production (e.g., mastering a music album with ProTools), audio tools (e.g., equalizers), and related consumer devices (e.g., hearing aids). Our approach is to center the interaction around user-provided examples, an evaluative paradigm (“I like this sound better than that sound”) and descriptive language (e.g., “Make the violin sound ‘warmer.’”). To build interfaces that use descriptive language, a system must be able to tell whether the stated goal is appropriate for the selected tool (e.g. making the violin “warmer” with a panning tool does not make sense). If the goal is appropriate for the tool, it must know what actions need to be taken (e.g., add some reverberation). Further, the tool should not impose a vocabulary on users, but rather understand the vocabulary users prefer. In this talk, Prof. Pardo describes recent work in evaluative interfaces, crowdsourcing a vocabulary for language-based production tools, and language-based interfaces for production tools.