Circular Convolution Audio Processing With Active Sample Elimination
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing audio processing systems face challenges in efficiently modifying real-time audio signals due to high memory bandwidth and processing requirements, particularly when applying multiple effects, which can lead to latency, throughput issues, and increased energy consumption.
Innovation Solution
The solution involves selectively transferring active samples in the frequency domain by identifying and omitting samples with zero or near-zero amplitudes, reducing memory bandwidth and processing requirements by skipping computations that have little impact on the output audio signal.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If all frequency domain samples are transferred from main memory to specialized hardware in real-time, then the audio signal can be modified with high fidelity, but memory bandwidth requirements and latency increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the meaningful subset of frequency domain samples (those with non-zero or near-zero amplitudes) from the complete set of samples. By identifying and transferring only these active samples to the specialized hardware, the system reduces memory bandwidth requirements and latency while preserving audio signal fidelity, as the inactive samples do not contribute to the output quality
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies partial action by transferring fewer than all samples - specifically, only the necessary active samples are transferred rather than the complete set. This partial transfer approach maintains sufficient audio quality while significantly reducing the memory bandwidth and time required for data transfer
2Manufacturing precision
If all frequency domain samples are processed by specialized hardware, then audio modification quality is maintained, but processing capacity and energy consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and processes only the active samples with non-zero or near-zero amplitudes, excluding inactive samples from processing. This extraction approach maintains audio modification quality because inactive samples do not contribute meaningfully to the output, while significantly reducing the processing energy consumption of the specialized hardware
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs partial processing by applying the modification operation only to the necessary active samples rather than all samples. This partial processing approach preserves sufficient audio quality while reducing the computational load and energy consumption of the specialized hardware
3Reliability
If inactive samples with zero or near-zero amplitudes are transferred and processed, then complete data is handled, but memory bandwidth and processing resources are wasted
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and identifies inactive samples with zero or near-zero amplitudes and excludes them from transfer and processing operations. This extraction maintains data reliability in the sense that all potentially meaningful data is preserved, while eliminating the waste of memory bandwidth and processing resources on samples that do not contribute to the output audio quality
Solution Approach 2:
The patent discards the transfer and processing of inactive samples that would otherwise consume resources without contributing to output quality. By identifying and discarding these redundant samples, the system recovers valuable memory bandwidth and processing resources for more useful operations
Data Source
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AI summary
Technologies are disclosed for improving the efficiency of real-time audio processing, and specifically for improving the efficiency of continuously modifying a real-time audio signal. Efficiency is improved by reducing memory bandwidth requirements and by reducing the amount of processing used to modify the real-time audio signal. In some configurations, memory bandwidth requirements are reduced by selectively transferring active samples in the frequency domain - e.g. avoiding the transfer samples with amplitudes of zero or near-zero. This has particular importance when the specialized hardware retrieves samples from main memory in real-time. In some configurations, the amount of processing needed to modify the audio signal is reduced by omitting operations that do not meaningfully affect the output audio signal. For example, a multiplication of samples may be avoided when at least one of the samples has an amplitude of zero or near-zero.