AREAL
Audio Rendering Engine And Library (AREAL) is a real-time audio renderer
and sound synthesis software library. It offers the software developer
and auditory display designer a set of tools for developing high-quality
audio applications for low-cost multimedia computers using consumer or
professional audio hardware. The primary purpose of AREAL is to enable
a "model-based" approach to audio which is becoming common on high-end
(and high-cost) workstations. We understand "model-based" audio to
be that in which auditory events are generated in real-time as a direct
mapping of a dynamically evolving data set or process.
AREAL incorporates (1) a real-time scheduler for managing uninterrupted
playback of computed audio samples using a standard sound card; (2) an
extendible synthesis library, whose API is called directly by an application;
and (3) a method by which audio rendering "models" are specified.