Current Courses
This course covers engineering aspects of acoustics including a review of oscillators, vibrations of single and multi degree-of-freedom systems, the acoustic wave equation, reflection and transmission of sound, underwater acoustics, and architectural acoustics. Emphasis is placed on musical aspects including the design of guitars, drums, loudspeakers, and acoustic spaces.
A follow on course to AME 272: Audio Signal Processing, AME 294 is a hands on course in designing real-time digital audio effects for the SHARC Audio Module (SAM). Students will use C/C++ language to program the SAM. The first half of the year consists of lab assignments, where students learn the basics of programming the SAM by designing simple audio effects such as filters, delays, compressors and synthesizers. After the completion of the required labs, each student completes an independent project on real-time signal processing. The project may be an original design, or model of an existing analog effect.
Senior Design Project in Audio and Music Engineering. In the first semester of this year-long AME Senior Project course, students are placed into groups with 3-4 members and define their design project with the instructor and an external customer. Each group will develop product concept documentation, detailed requirements specifications, system level designs, detailed sub-system designs and begin construction of demonstration prototypes. Emphasis is placed on developing and adhering to time schedules, teamwork, and working within an agreed-upon financial budget.
In the second semester of this year-long AME Senior Project course, students complete the project proposed during the first semester. Each group meets regularly with the instructors to ensure that adequate progress is made each week. Emphasis is placed on the quality of the deliverable. It is expected that each project meets the goals stated in the original proposal. The deliverable for each group must be fully completed and demonstrated during Design Day - a celebration of scholarship showcasing projects from each of the programs in the engineering school.
ECE 470: Digital Audio Effects, Fall 2020 - present
ECE 470 is a hands on course using computers and signal-processing to alter the temporal and tonal characteristics of audio signals. Topics include sampling, quantization, modulation effects, delay-line-based effects, audio synthesis, non-linear effects, and spectral processing. An emphasis is placed on designing algorithms that are optimized for real-time processing on embedded hardware. Students develop and visualize algorithms in MATLAB, and implement them on the SHARC Audio Module DSP platform.
Previous Courses
ECE 489: Master’s Research Seminar in Audio and Acoustics, Fall 2018 and Fall 2019
In this course, students review recent publications in the field of audio engineering in a group setting. Students are expected give presentations on key papers within an assigned subfield, and facilitate group discussions on the topic. Subfields may include loudspeakers, headphones, sound quality prediction, audio for AR/VR, and spatial audio. Publications are selected from the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, and other leading scientific journals.