Here goes the problem of storing music on our hard drives.

Researchers at the University of Rochester managed to digitally recreate a music file that is almost 1,000 times smaller than a regular MP3 file. A 20 seconds clarinet solo that takes less than a kilobyte was possible using a computer that literally reproduces the original performance based on what it knows about the real-world physics of clarinet and the physics of a clarinet player.

Behind the computer model of a clarinet is Mark Bocko, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and two of his doctoral students, Xiaoxiao Dong and Mark Sterling.

“This is essentially a human-scale system of reproducing music. Humans can manipulate their tongue, breath, and fingers only so fast, so in theory we shouldn’t really have to measure the music many thousands of times a second like we do on a CD. As a result, I think we may have found the absolute least amount of data needed to reproduce a piece of music” said Bocko.

Here are the audio files, in WAV format for Web comparison :

Human performance recorded using MP3 format

Virtual performance using Bocko’s new compression

Though not perfect, it is very difficult to tell the synthesized sound from the original sound. Future improvements of the method will include more than just one instrument, and Professor Bocko is confident that the synthesis algorithms will improve and the future of music could be “reproducing performers and not recording them”.