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 Tech softens vuvuzela blows
By Theo Boshoff
There has been an ongoing debate about the blowing of the vuvuzela during the Fifa 2010 World Cup and whether it should be banned or not.
It seems that they are here to stay, but researchers at the Centre for Digital Music (C4DM) at Queen Mary, University of London have developed "devuvuzelator" software that filters out the droning sounds of vuvuzelas for anyone watching the World Cup on a computer.
By analysing the sound of the vuvuzela, Dr Chris Cannam and a team of researchers from the C4DM have devised a filter they believe largely removes the sound of the horns to make the commentary more clear.
The filter also has a small footprint and is simple to run in real-time, which means it can be applied to a live broadcasted matches.
 The “devuvuzelator” filter, according to the developers, estimates the amount of energy in the signal contributed by vuvuzelas, at the specific frequencies expected, and then subtracts just that energy. This 'adaptive' approach, they note, potentially preserves the voice energy in the signal and helps preserve the voice quality of the commentator.
If the sound of the vuvuzelas is getting a tad too much for you while watching a game on your PC, go check out www.isophonics.net
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