On Course
Title: MMI 593 Special Topics: DSP Programming for Audio Applications
Department: Music Media and Industry, Frost School of Music
Semester: Spring 2009

From Les Paul to Led Zeppelin, Little Richard to Radiohead—when musicians plugged in, audio engineers and their innovations arguably became as important to the soundscape as the performers and their instruments.

In DSP Programming for Audio Applications, taught by Corey Cheng, associate professor and director of the Music Engineering Technology program and associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, students learn to manipulate sound through a variety of technology platforms.

At his students’ request, the former Dolby Laboratories engineer tried something new last spring. He and nine upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, admitted by special permission, explored the Apple iPhone as an audio programming device.

“This was the first time we've considered mobile devices such as the iPhone in a course like this,” Cheng says.

To get the group in sync, he enlisted the help of electrical engineering major Patrick O’Keefe, who created one of the first iPhone applications for the 2008 launch of Apple’s App Store.

In Cheng’s sound laboratory, students consulted one another about tangles of colorful cables to be reverse-engineered. Or, inspired by electronic music pioneer Robert Moog, they toiled over a toy keyboard, modifying it to produce eerie, wobbling echoes.

“There’s not a lot of documentation for this,” says grad student Chris Santoro, who programmed an iPhone application that allows users to set rhythmic delays for any impulse they record into the iPhone. “We’ve had to share and pool our knowledge.”

All told, Cheng thought the experimental class rocked. “I would love to do this again,” he says. “It’s been a lot of fun to see what they come up with!”