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Realtime Computation of a VST Audio Effect Plugin on the Graphics Processor

Authors:
Wolfgang Fohl
Julian Dessecker

Keywords: GPGPU computing; VST plugin; Spatial audio; Head-related transfer functions;

Abstract:
A plugin system for GPGPU real time audio effect calculation on the graphics processing unit of the computer system is presented. The prototype application is the rendering of mono audio material with head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) to create the impression of a sound source located in a certain direction relative to the listener's head. The virtual source location can be controlled in realtime. Since HRTFs are measured only for certain incident angles, a interpolation for intermediate angles has to be performed in realtime. Plugins are implemented using the VST software development kit offered by Steinberg Media Technologies. Two GPU processing frameworks for a NVIDIA graphics processor were evaluated: CUDA and OpenCL. The overall processing speed can be increased by the factor 2.2 with the GPGPU modules. When calculating the FIR filter outputs by fast convolution on the GPU, the processing speed can even be increased by the factor ten.

Pages: 58 to 62

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2011

Publication date: September 25, 2011

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4162

ISBN: 978-1-61208-157-1

Location: Rome, Italy

Dates: from September 25, 2011 to September 30, 2011