The proposed research thesis is in the area of sound synthesis, specifically in the problem of automating the design of the sound synthesis techniques and sound synthesizer topologies. The goal is to devise an algorithm capable of suggesting plausible sound synthesis topologies when presented with a target sound. It uses a custom definition of the Sound Synthesis Techniques Space, and evolutionary methods, i.e., Genetic Programming, to search the space. A new algorithm for embedding a digital watermark into an audio signal is proposed. It uses spread spectrum theory to generate a watermark resistant to different removal attempts and a psychoacoustic auditory model to shape and embed the watermark into the audio signal while retaining the signal's perceptual quality.
Recovery is performed without knowledge of the original audio signal.
A software system is implemented and tested for perceptual transparency and data-recovery performance.