FAST project: Acoustic and semantic technologies for intelligent music production and consumption

Yesterday I arrived from Paris, where I attended, as Advisory Board member, a meeting of the FAST Project (www.semanticaudio.ac.uk).

FAST-IMPACT stands for “Fusing Acoustic and Semantic Technologies for Intelligent Music Production and Consumption” and it is funded by EPRSC, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Countil, UK with 5,199,944 £ (side note: OMG this is real funding, they should know at the new Spanish Agencia Estatal para la Investigación)

According to their web site, This five-year EPSRC project brings the very latest technologies to bear on the entire recorded music industry, end-to-end, producer to consumer, making the production process more fruitful, the consumption process more engaging, and the delivery and intermediation more automated and robust. It addresses three main premises:

(i) that Semantic Web technologies should be deployed throughout the content value chain from producer to consumer;

(ii) that advanced signal processing should be employed in the content production phases to extract “pure” features of perceptual significance and represent these in standard vocabularies;

(iii) that this combination of semantic technologies and content-derived metadata leads to advantages (and new products and services) at many points in the value chain, from recording studio to end-user (listener) devices and applications.

The project is leaded by Dr Mark Sandler, Queen Mary University of London, and include as project participants University of Nottingham (leaded by Dr. Steve Benford), University of Oxford (leaded by Dr. David Deroure), Abbey Road Studios, BBC R&D, The Internet Archives, Microsoft Research and Audiolaboratories Eerlangen.

The results for this first year are amazing, as it can bee seen on the web, in terms of publication, scientific and technological outcomes but more important, great and inspiring ideas!

I am honoured to be part of the advisory board with such excellent researchers and contribute to the Project as much as I can. Some photos of the meeting: