Time-frequency signal models for music analysis, transformation, and synthesis

In signal analysis-synthesis, the analysis derives a set of parameters that the synthesis uses to reconstruct the original signal. In musical applications, this reconstruction should be perceptually accurate, and the parameterization should allow for such desirable signal modifications as time-scaling, pitch-shifting and cross-synthesis; the analysis parameters should correspond to a signal model that is flexible enough to allow these transformations. Sinusoidal modeling meets this flexibility requirement, but has difficulty representing some salient features of musical signals such as attack transients and noise-like processes. Sinusoidal modeling is reviewed and some variations are proposed to account for its shortcomings; also, wavelet-based representations of musical signals are considered.