Electric-to-acoustic pickup processing for string instruments: An experimental study of the guitar with a hexaphonic...

Area of Science:

• Music Technology
• Acoustics
• Digital Signal Processing

Background:

• Electric instruments often lack the resonant qualities of acoustic instruments.
• Previous methods primarily used equalization, failing to capture nuanced acoustic characteristics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a signal processing method that accurately simulates acoustic string instrument responses on electric instruments.
• To implement frequency-dependent string decay alterations for enhanced realism.

Main Methods:

• Utilized physics-based string damping changes via time-varying filters with frequency-dependent exponential damping.
• Employed efficient digital filters fitted to acoustic instrument admittance measurements.
• Developed real-time damping correction filters triggered by onset and pitch detection.

Main Results:

• Successfully modeled an acoustic guitar's sound using an electric guitar with the proposed processing.
• Demonstrated the effectiveness of frequency-dependent damping filters in achieving acoustic realism.

Conclusions:

• The proposed signal processing method effectively imparts acoustic string instrument characteristics to electric instruments.
• Physics-based damping simulation offers a significant improvement over traditional equalization techniques for instrument modeling.