STOCHASTIC RESONANCE SOUND SYNTHESIS
Rodrigo F. Cádiz and Patricio de la Cuadra
Centro de Investigación en Tecnologı́as de Audio
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
{rcadiz,pcuadra}@uc.cl
ABSTRACT
Stochastic resonance is a nonlinear phenomenon that oc-
curs when the addition of noise to a weak signal enhances
its detectability or its information content. An optimal
amount of added noise results in a maximum enhance-
ment. The addition of noise allows the perception of a
signal in contexts where it could not be perceived at all
because of its low amplitude. Two sound synthesis tech-
niques inspired on this phenomenon are proposed in this
article. First, by artificially attenuating an audio signal be-
low a certain threshold and then adding the proper amount
of noise, it is possible to construct a modified version of
the original signal, that retains some of its perceptual char-
acteristics but that is indeed a different signal. Second, a
variant of this phenomenon that is not restricted to sub-
threshold signals, known as suprathreshold stochastic res-
onance, was also explored as a novel synthesis technique.
Patches in Max/MSP were created in order to demonstrate
these procedures.
1. INTRODUCTION
Stochastic resonance is a statistical phenomenon that is
observed on both man-made and naturally occurring non
linear systems [5]. This phenomenon occurs when noise
enhances an external forcing signal in a nonlinear dynam-
ical system, if and only if the system has a nonzero noise
optimum [4]. In other words, a dynamical system sub-
ject to both periodic forcing and random perturbation may
show a resonance, defined as a peak in its power spectrum,
which is absent when either the forcing or the perturbation
is absent [1]. This phenomenon does not occur in strictly
linear systems, where the addition of noise only degrades
the measures of signal quality [5].
The simplest paradigm of stochastic resonance is the
non-dynamical or threshold theory [6]. In this manifes-
tation, stochastic resonance results from the concurrence
of a threshold, a sub-threshold signal and noise, and it is
explained in more detail in section 2. Some authors [7]
[2] have shown that for this case there is a direct corre-
spondence between stochastic resonance and the dithering
effect, very well known in the theory of digital waveform
coding. Stochastic resonance also exists in another form,
denoted as dynamical stochastic resonance, that only ap-
pears in stochastic, nonlinear, dynamical systems [5].
Stochastic resonance also exists in multi-threshold sys-
tems in the presence of noise and periodic inputs. This
form is denoted as suprathreshold stochastic resonance,
because resonance is found even for large input signals.
When the noise on each threshold is independent, and
sufficiently large, the optimal thresholds are those given
by the suprathreshold stochastic resonance effect. In this
case, all threshold devices are identical to the signal mean
[3]. This phenomenon is detailed in section 3
Stochastic resonance was discovered and proposed for
the first time in 1981 to explain the periodic recurrence of
ice ages [1]. Experiments have shown the appearance of
stochastic resonance in sensory biology, animal behavior,
electrophysiological signals, neuronal function as well as
in several aspects of human perception, including human
audition. For a detailed account of stochastic resonance in
sensory information processing and related applications,
please refer to [5].
2. THRESHOLD STOCHASTIC RESONANCE
The necessary components for the threshold paradigm of
stochastic resonance are:
1. A threshold
2. A sub-threshold signal
3. Additive noise
In threshold stochastic resonance, noise is added to a
sub-threshold signal with the purpose of marking thresh-
old crossings in the signal. This is shown in figure 1 (a)
and (b). In (a) we observe a subthreshold signal with
added noise that is compared to a threshold. For low noise
intensities, the signal with added noise does not cross the
threshold frequently, so only a small portion of the signal
is passed through it. For large noise intensities, the output
is dominated by the noise. In both cases, a low signal to
noise ratio is obtained. For moderate intensities, the noise
allows the signal to reach threshold, but the noise intensity
is not so large as to totally cover it. All threshold crossings
are marked by a pulse, as shown in figure 1 (b).
In the visual domain, this phenomenon has been exten-
sively studied and tested. The perception of a subthresh-
old image is dramatically improved when additive Gaus-
sian noise is added to the image [6].
 (a) Signal with added noise is compared to threshold

(b) Output: each threshold crossing is marked by a standard pulse

1

0.5

!0.5

!1

Figure 1. Threshold paradigm of stochastic resonance

2.1. Method
Let x be an audio signal of finite length, α an attenuation Figure 3. Threshold algorithm implemented as a subpatch
factor between 0 and 1, Θ an arbitrary threshold value and in Max/MSP
η a noise signal with normal distribution with zero mean
and standard deviation σ.
At the sample level, the amplitude of the input signal is
compared to a threshold. If the amplitude is greater than
the threshold the output signal is marked with 1 and 0 oth-
erwise. This procedure results in an output signal that con-
Threshold sists of a sequence of pulses, containing a great amount of
Θ Low Pass
Filter
undesired high frequency content. To minimize this prob-
Audio Audio lem, an optional low pass filter is proposed after this stage
<
Signal x + Signal with the purpose of smoothing the resulting signal.
In Out
This process produces a new signal that is dependant
α η
on the amount of added noise and the threshold Θ. By
Standard deviation
changing these parameters it is possible to control the ru-
σ gosity or granularity of the output signal, similar to the
effect of granular synthesis. Surprinsingly, the results of
this technique are very similar to those of granular synthe-
sis, although their foundations are completely different. A
complete Max/MSP implementation of this algorithm is
shown in figure 4.
Figure 2. Threshold stochastic resonance synthesis
method
3. SUPRATHRESHOLD STOCHASTIC
The proposed sound synthesis method is the following: RESONANCE

1. Attenuate x by the factor α so that it completely
falls below Θ and denote this new signal by xΘ .
2. Add η to xΘ .
3. Retain only those samples that are higher in ampli-
tude than Θ. Make the samples that fall below Θ
zero.
4. Apply a low pass filter to the obtained signal, in or-
der to smooth transitions.
The proposed method is shown in figure 2. The im-
plementation of the threshold algorithm in Max/MSP is
shown in figure 3.
Given a noisy multi-threshold system, it has been shown
that for suprathreshold signal levels when all threshold
values are equal to the signal mean, the mutual informa-
tion between the input and output signals has a maximum
value for a nonzero noise intensity. This phenomenon is
know as suprathreshold stochastic resonance, because it
is a form of stochastic resonance that is not restricted to
subthreshold signals [2] [3].
Figure 5 shows how this phenomenon works. A single
input signal is received by N noisy threshold devices that
are subject to independent additive noise. The output from
each device, is unity if the sum of the signal and noise at
its output is greater than the corresponding threshold and
 Figure 4. Max/MSP implementation of threshold stochastic resonance

zero otherwise. The total output of the system is obtained
by the sum of each individual output. When all thresh-
old are equal to the signal mean the information transfer
between the input and ouput signals is maximized.
3.1. Method
Let x be an audio signal of finite length, Θ an arbitrary
threshold value and η a noise signal with normal distribu-
tion with zero mean and standard deviation σ. The pro-
posed sound synthesis method is the following:

1. Create N signals xi resulting of the sum of x and

ηi .
<
+ Θ1
2. Pass each xi through N threshold devices using the
η1 same Θ.
Audio + Θ2
< Audio 3. Filter out only those samples that are higher in am-
Signal + Signal
In Out plitude than Θ. Make the samples that fall below Θ
η2
zero.
... ...
4. Add all the ouput signals together.
<
+ ΘN
Max/MSP implementations of both a noisy threshold
ηN
device and an array of these devices are shown in figures
3 and 6. The same input signals used in section 2 were
used. 16 noisy threshold devices were used. The patch
allows a flexible manipulation of the relevant parameters:
Figure 5. Supra threshold stochastic resonance synthesis the threshold value, amount of added noise and optional
method attenuation and low pass filter effects. When all thresh-
olds are equal to the signal mean, the information trans-
fer is maximized and the output sound is almost identical
Figure 6. Max/MSP implementation of suprathreshold stochastic resonance sound synthesis using 16 noisy threshold
devices
with the input and little resynthesis is obtained. But if
these parameters depart from their optimum values more
musically appealing results can be obtained.
4. CONCLUSIONS
Two sound synthesis algorithms based on threshold and
suprathreshold stochastic resonance were proposed theo-
retically and implemented in Max/MSP. In terms of sound
quality, these techniques resemble certain aspects of gran-
ular synthesis. By adjusting the standard deviation of the
added noise, and threshold levels, it is possible to control
the granularity or rugosity of the produced sound textures.
In general, the results obtained by the suprathreshold
stochastic resonance method were more satisfactory per-
ceptually than those obtained with threshold stochastic res-
onance. We believe that this is due to the fact that no
attenuation is necessary and to a better transfer of infor-
mation. However, we believe that both proposed synthesis
methods are interesting and worth for further studying and
exploring.
The proposed techniques may not only be applied to
the creation of sounds, but also to some other aspects of
audio signal processing such as audio restoration.
5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was possible due to the support of an aca-
demic insertion grant of the Vicerrectorı́a Académica of
the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and a re-
search grant from the World Bank, Programa Bicentenario
de Ciencia y Tecnologı́a, Conicyt, Government of Chile.
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