‘US 2009000: cu») United States 4Al 1361: 2) Patent Application Publication co) Pub. No.: US 2009/0003614 Al Neunaber (54) APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR ARTIFICIAL REVERBERATION (76) Investor: Brian C, Neunaber, Santa Ana, CA ws) CComespondenee Address KEVIN L KLUG ATTORNEY AT LAW 11237 CONCORD VILLAGE AVENUE ‘MO 63123-2273 (US) (21) Appl. No. 12015,084 (22) Filed Related U.S. Application Data (G@) Provisional application No. 60'937,817, filed on Jun. 30, 2007 (43) Pub, Date Jan. 1, 2009 ication Classification G1) Int. H03G 300 US.CL (2006.01), 381/63 ABSTRACT A apparatus and method for artifical reverberation having ‘ne oF more input summing nodes receving an inpet signs Snd which each feed a fist series of delay clement andthe ‘pit of which is thereafter summed weighted, and fu bak to be pit summing nodes Also eedbock suming nade ‘hich liter feed's second delay clement which feds 3 ‘output with signal whieh hos muiediensional of malt oly reverberation lave tothe input sigaa Anaitematve ‘mbodiment farther fonds one or more of theft delay cle ‘Sen! opts weighted via an Outpt gain to a ost same ‘ming node which also sume the tpt of the second de lament and provides 2 sumed output having mult ‘mensional or mltedeay reverberation, The embodies only and coonomicely implemented via comentona nt {rvedclocone ers, combination ofenstog and itl Slctonic, digital signal processors, microprocessor, ‘bico-contolers, or computer algoitins. ve 15 12Patent Application Publication Jan. 1,2009 Sheet 1 of 8 US 2009/0003614 AI an an” ae —— Zz bal tiga) -——4_ >} FIG. 1 (PRIOR ART)Patent Application Publication Jan. 1,2009 Sheet 2 of 8 US 2009/0003614 AI FIG. 2 (PRIOR ART)Patent Application Publication Jan. 1,2009 Sheet 3 of 8 US 2009/0003614 AIPatent Application Publication Jan. 1,2009 Sheet 4 of 8 US 2009/0003614 AI FIG. 3aPatent Application Publication Jan. 1,2009 Sheet 5 of 8 US 2009/0003614 AI 100 123Patent Application Publication _Jan. 1,2009 Sheet 6 of 8 US 2009/0003614 AI % DIGITAL DELAY DIGITAL DELAY wn [Oe nae — -- 406 Pep cote | z. pope FIG. 5US 2009/0003614 AI Jan. 1, 2009 Sheet 7 of 8 Patent Application Publication FIG.6Patent Application Publication _Jan. 1,2009 Sheet 8 of 8 US 2009/0003614 AI ss £8 § & 8 8 8 @—@—G OOOO, —O z Wo com LprD >) Dem [ ters L 112. Vee | Ce) poy c1ock AUTO. ~ — RESET] [sax sits veo] RAM PT2399 D-@ D—O—O—E a , ¢ © os § ge = 8 FIG.7US 2009/0003614 AI APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR "ARTIFICIAL REVERBERATION [0001] This application claims priority of U.S. Provisional Pateat Application No. 60937.817, filed Jun. 30, 2007, ‘ealilled Apparatus and Method for Anificial Reverberaion, BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 10002] The present invention relates to the processing of'an audio signal for the simulation of acoustic reverberation in eneral and more particularly for application to musical ‘instruments and vocals. The present at is expecially adapl- able to the electronic processing of audio signals inorder to ‘dd user desired reverberation effec(s). Artificial everbera- tion simulates the ambience of a sound within an enclosed space, such asa lage room or music hal. 10003] Reverberation is commonly added to audio signals (o increase the listener's perception of ambience and spa- ‘iousness. Natural reverberation oocurs when a sound sr ‘ated within an enclosed space: the sound reflects off ofthe ‘various walls and objects within the room, traveling back to the listener later in time. This reflected sound, 0 reverber- tion, decays exponentially with ime due othe sound's loss of ‘enoray as iti transmitted outward into a three-dimensional space. Typically the sound decays more quickly at high fe- _quencies ducto the absorption of these frequencies by airand Wal surfaces. 0004} The soni qualities of antfcial reverberation are fa ‘easier to contro than those of natural reverberation; and for this reason, artificial reverberation is commonly ws in the creation, recording, and reproduction of sound. Artificial reverberation emulates natural reverberation by employing & ‘combination of delays, Irequency response filtering, Teedback, These mechanisms have been implemented by various means, including electromeckanical, analog elec- tronic, and digital electronic. Eleeiromechanical- means includes spring and plate reverberation. Analog electronic means inchides the Use of bucke-brigade delays (BBD). Digital electronic means incindes implementation with nbexed digital hardware such 2s digital signal processors Ps), appleation-specific intepratedcireuits (ASICS), and software implementation within a general-purpose process- jing platform stich as a personal computer. [0005] Each of these various means of implementation have advantages and disadvantages relating to sound quality, ‘cost, size, ease of manufacture, ete. Typically, cost is the Primary consideration when selecting a reverberation device to be embedded within a consumer-grade audio product oF ‘enity-level professional product, Priorat spring reverbera- tors (ie. mechanical) are still commonly found in devices sueh as guitar amplifiers, because they are the lowest cost ‘option, However, digital electtonie reverberators are growing ‘in popularity because of recent reductions in cost, size, and a tenerally superior sound quality. Creation or generation of high-quality, natural-sounding artificial reverberation almost ‘exclusively employs digital circuitry, consisting of both memory for delay lines and computational logic for multi ‘ation and summation. Many artificial reverberation proces- ss are implemented using DSPs (digital signal processors) ‘or similar mieroprocessors which are capable of high-speed arithmetic processing. The aforesaid DSPs are designed 10 Perform a varity of processing algorithms and are not cost ‘optimized Tor simply yeneraing reverberation, A costopt Jan. 1, 2009 4 digital solution requires an ASIC; bawever this soht requires significant up-frvat enginecring efor and cost As such, the implementation ofa simple reverb processor is ‘more expensive than it need to be [0006] Digital reverberatoralgorithms employ oneormore delay lines which aretypically configured as scombination of early reflections, comb filters, and all-pass fies. Early reflection fers are aon-uniformly-leimated,non-reeursive fers intended to simulate the inital 100 ms or so of the impulse respnse of reverberation, Comb filters inthis eon- text are recursive filters whose delayed outputs ae fed back, ‘weighted ad summed with their inputs. The comb fer delays are typically between 50 ms and 100 ms in length nd often embed a low-pass filter at their outputs to samulate the high-frequency absorption of sound in ae Alps ites in this ontextare first-order filters with delay lengths anywhere between a few milliseconds to over 100 ms. The aforesaid filters are often combined in cascade andor in parallel with {eedhaek tocreate the reverberstor algorithm. Often, multiple filter types are employed to overcome the inherent defiien- cies of each and to provide adequate sound quality lor a Variety of input siguals Unfortunately, this results the need {or significant delay memory and computational resources, whieh further limits the ost reduetion of digital reverbera- {0007} _Stautnerand Packette within the reference “Design Ing Multi-Channel Reverberaors” (Computee Music Jour nal, vol 6. no, 1, pp. 52-65, Spring 1982) introduced the feedback delay nedwork (FDN}, where the outputsof multiple ela Tines are fed back through a feedback matrix before summation wit the delay Tine inputs. In prior art parallel comb filter revererators, the output of each delay fed back baly (its own input, described by the system equation: where xi the input, isthe output, is the delay in samples, sis the feedback coeificient, and z-e” in Fourier space. FDN everberators usea multpl of parallel delays whose outputs ‘may food back to multiple doy line inputs; however, certain conditions must be met to ensure stability of the network. ‘That is the network cannot be allowed to satisfy the Barkhausen criteria ofa unity loop gain and « multiple of 2 Joop phase shif. Using matrices, the authors generalize the comb iter and thereby deseribe a plurality of parallel comb ‘ters with the system equation pone where X isa vector ofN inputs, ¥ isa veetor of N outputs, G is an N-by-N matrix of feedback coefficients, and D is a agonal N-by-N matex of delays in the form Funlermore the authors show that one way to ensure system stability s for where the scala [Alt and Us unitary N-by-N matrix. la bother words, U satisfies the co