Contact: Mihir Sarkar

For all positions, please include a resume (or a description of skills and interests) and a short paragraph describing your motivation and relevant experience (classes or projects).

Position start asap, and may be continued over IAP and the Spring term (for pay or credit).

For more information on UROP eligibility and application process, please refer to MIT's UROP website.

Sound Design with Everyday Words

Faculty Supervisor: Barry Vercoe

Musicians often describe the quality of musical sounds with words such as "bright" or "warm". Our project investigates the relationship between auditory perception and language in this context: we are interested in finding whether people use a common terminology to describe timbre, and how their choice of words correlates with audio features. We deployed an online survey in which over 1000 participants were asked to describe the sounds they heard. Our objective is to analyze the data, and then design an audio processing engine that can automatically tag sounds in a database for retrieval purposes, or even synthesize or modify sounds according to descriptive words instead of technical parameters.

Prerequisites:
- Strong interest in music technology,
- Good programming skills: PHP / Python (or similar), mySQL, Matlab,
- Familiarity with sound synthesis, digital signal processing, or machine learning techniques are a plus,
- Ability to learn quickly on the job, high degree of self-motivation.

Real-Time Network Music Performance

Faculty Supervisor: Barry Vercoe

Thanks to the Internet, musicians located in different countries can now aspire to play to play together in real-time as if they were in the same place. However, the time delays due to the inherent latency in computer networks are unsuitable for real-time musical applications. To address this, we propose an online musical collaboration system that combines machine listening and machine learning to represent, transmit, and generate music over computer networks. We expect to develop animations to accompany a live music performance distributed over multiple continents. The animations should respond to incoming streams of audio data and network packets, and include remote video feeds.

Prerequisites:
- Graphics programing (Flash, Jitter, Processing, OpenGL, etc.),
- Familiarity with networking is a plus,
- High degree of self-motivation.

Audio Engineering

Faculty Supervisor: Barry Vercoe

Are you interested in MUSIC? Are you interested in TECHNOLOGY?
We have a wide variety of tasks related to ongoing research projects in the Music, Mind and Machine group, and to audio research requirements at the Media Lab, including, but not limited to: recording studio calibration and analysis; needs assessment and purchase of hardware and software equipment; high-performance fan-less audio workstations assembly and configuration; website maintenance and data archival; sound system setup for sponsor demos, rehearsals and live performances.

Prerequisites:
- Strong interest in music technology,
- Willingness to learn,
- High degree of self-motivation.

Students interested in learning about with the field of music technology are especially encouraged to apply.

India Initiatives

Faculty Supervisor: Ramesh Raskar

Are you interested in BUSINESS? Are you interested in INDIA?
The Media Lab is looking for UROPs to work on a business development project to foster collaborations and partnerships with organizations in India. The work will include market research, strategy planning, etc.

Prerequisites:
- Experience or strong interest in market research, business development,
- Excellent communication and analytical skills, creative ability, high degree of initiative and self-motivation,
- Familiarity with the Indian market is a plus.