Parallel Wave Digital Filter Implementations of Audio Circuits with Multiple Nonlinearities

Giampiccolo R, Natoli A, Bernardini A, Sarti A. Parallel Wave Digital Filter Implementations of Audio Circuits with Multiple Nonlinearities. J Audio Eng Soc. 2022;70(6):469-484. doi:10.17743/jaes.2022.0012

@article{Giampiccolo2022_21797,
  author = {Giampiccolo, Riccardo and Natoli, Antonino and Bernardini, Alberto and Sarti, Augusto},
  title = {{Parallel Wave Digital Filter Implementations of Audio Circuits with Multiple Nonlinearities}},
  journal = {Journal of the Audio Engineering Society},
  volume = {70},
  number = {6},
  pages = {469--484},
  year = {2022},
  month = jun,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  doi = {10.17743/jaes.2022.0012},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.17743/jaes.2022.0012}
}

TY  - JOUR
TI  - Parallel Wave Digital Filter Implementations of Audio Circuits with Multiple Nonlinearities
AU  - Giampiccolo, Riccardo
AU  - Natoli, Antonino
AU  - Bernardini, Alberto
AU  - Sarti, Augusto
T2  - Journal of the Audio Engineering Society
J2  - J. Audio Eng. Soc.
VL  - 70
IS  - 6
SP  - 469
EP  - 484
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/06/06
DO  - 10.17743/jaes.2022.0012
UR  - https://doi.org/10.17743/jaes.2022.0012
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - Modern audio systems and musical effects feature multicore processing units. Thus, the development of parallel audio processing algorithms capable of exploiting the architecture of such hardware is in order. In this paper, a parallel version of the hierarchical scattering iterative method (HSIM), a technique based on wave digital filter principles recently proposed for the emulation of multiphysics audio circuits containing multiple nonlinear one-ports and nonlinear transformers, is presented. HSIM operates in a modular fashion, and it is characterized by a high number of embarrassingly parallelizable operations, making it a good candidate for parallel execution. After analyzing HSIM from the parallel computing perspective, three different strategies for the distribution of HSIM workload among threads of execution are proposed, showing how to compute the maximum achievable speedup. The emulation of a possible output stage of a vacuum-tube guitar amplifier is considered, and a performance comparison between parallel and serial implementations of HSIM is presented, pointing out a speedup of nearly 30%. The proposed method thus proves to be promising for virtual analog modeling applications, leading the way towards the parallel digital emulation of increasingly complex audio circuits.
ER  -