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arXiv · 2606.00629

Quality Audio Prototyping: a prototype system for unified sound retrieval and procedural generation

Nelly Garcia·Aditya Bhattacharjee·Gabryel Mason-Williams·Israel Mason-Williams·Emmanouil Benetos·Joshua Reiss
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Abstract

Sound design workflows frequently oscillate between time-consuming library searches and the complexity of procedural synthesis, with practitioners typically relying on disconnected tools to address each challenge separately. This paper introduces Quality Audio Prototyping (QuAP), a working prototype that unifies content-based audio retrieval and procedural sound generation within a single interface, reducing the procedural distance between a narrative concept and its sonic realisation. QuAP integrates a similarity-based retrieval engine with real-time procedural audio models, complemented by a rule-based assistant that provides perceptually informed parameter guidance, offering definitions and recommendations derived from empirical optimisation rather than requiring prior synthesis knowledge. Preliminary evaluation confirms the viability of this approach: subjective assessment demonstrated statistically significant quality improvements in five of six embedded synthesis models, and an encoder ablation study established the preferred retrieval architecture on a sound effect dataset. A user evaluation with 16 practitioners confirmed the tool's workflow utility, with all participants agreeing that the parameter assistant preserved creative agency while lowering the barrier to procedural interaction.

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Nelly Garcia, Aditya Bhattacharjee, Gabryel Mason-Williams, Israel Mason-Williams, Emmanouil Benetos, Joshua Reiss. 2026-05-30. Quality Audio Prototyping: a prototype system for unified sound retrieval and procedural generation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.00629

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