Melody Tracker for Auditory Prostheses Music Processing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional sound processing strategies for auditory prostheses, such as cochlear implants, fail to provide a satisfactory experience for music due to their focus on speech, as music involves complex interactions of multiple elements that cannot be adequately reproduced by these strategies.
Innovation Solution
A melody tracker approach is applied in the auditory prosthesis to preprocess music in real time, simplifying complex musical inputs into a single voice representation, which is then processed further to produce a stimuli signal, using music pre-processing software that isolates key musical aspects like timbre and notes, improving music perception for users.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If conventional speech processing strategies are applied to music, then speech understanding is improved, but music perception quality deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The music signal is segmented into multiple independent voice sources using source separation techniques. Each voice is processed individually through the auditory prosthesis, allowing preservation of musical complexity while managing the signal in tractable units that can be mapped to electrode channels.
Solution Approach 2:
The melody tracker extracts the fundamental melody line from complex musical inputs, isolating the most perceptually important information. This extracted melody is then processed by the auditory prosthesis, separating the melody extraction function from the general speech processing pipeline.
2Reliability
If complex musical inputs are processed in real time, then music perception is improved, but processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Music pre-processing software performs preliminary extraction of melody and voice information from complex musical inputs before the signal enters the auditory prosthesis. This preliminary action simplifies the subsequent processing stages, reducing the computational burden on the implant while preserving music perception quality.
Solution Approach 2:
An external music pre-processing device or software acts as an intermediary between the music source and the auditory prosthesis. This intermediary performs complex source separation and melody tracking, delivering a simplified signal to the implant that maintains music perception while reducing device complexity.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple simultaneous musical elements are preserved, then music complexity is improved, but signal-to-noise ratio deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The mixture of simultaneous musical elements is segmented into separate voice sources through source separation. Each segmented voice can be individually processed and mapped to specific electrode channels, preserving the complexity of multiple elements while maintaining a high signal-to-noise ratio for each individual source.
Solution Approach 2:
Different processing strategies are applied to different parts of the musical signal. Melody information receives enhanced processing and mapping to specific electrodes, while other musical elements are processed differently. This local differentiation preserves overall music complexity while ensuring the most important information (melody) has optimal signal quality.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of pre-processing a sound signal including music for an auditory prosthesis is provided. An input sound signal is received. The sound signal is processed using music pre-processing software to produce a music pre-processed signal. The music pre-processed signal is presented for further processing, so as to produce a corresponding stimuli signal.