CV
UNIPDDepartment of Information Engineering
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ABOUT

PERSONAL DETAILS
Via Giovanni Gradenigo, 6/B, 35131 Padova PD, Italia
niccolo.pretto_at_dei.unipd.it
+39 049 827 6465

BIO

ABOUT ME

Niccolò Pretto completed his Ph.D. at the Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova. His research is primarily focused on sound and music computing, and preservation and access to historical audio documents and cultural heritage in general. More specifically, his work consists of research and development of innovative methodologies, and applications to preserve, analyze, and experience musical heritage. His work is highly multidisciplinary; during his research he has collaborated with engineers (computer science, telecommunication, civil, and the like), as well as musicologists, archaeologists, archivists, psychologists, architects, earth scientists, and physicians. Additionally, his research has included the adoption of several technologies and methods extending to web and mobile interfaces, embedded systems, and machine learning techniques. He is member of ACM, AES, IEEE, IEEE Standard Associations and MPAI community. He is also founder member of MPAI Store Limited.


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RESUME

  • EDUCATION AND ACADEMIC POSITIONS
  • Dic 20
    Dic 22
    Padova

    SENIOR POSTDOC RESEARCH FELLOW
    (ASSEGNISTA DI RICERCA TIPO B SENIOR)

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA - DEI

    Department of Information Engineering,
    Project:
    IT4aREC – Innovative Tools and Algorithms for preserving and Archiving Analogue Audio RECordings
    Project funded by Department of Information Engineering on the "B Senior Initiative"
    Principal Investigator: Niccolò Pretto
    Supervisor: Prof. Sergio Canazza
  • May 22
    Dic 22
    Pisa

    ASSOCIATE RESEARCHER
    (RICERCATORE ASSOCIATO)

    NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF ITALY - CNR

    Institute for Computational Linguistics "A. Zampolli"
  • Sep 20
    Dic 20
    Padova

    POSTDOC RESEARCH FELLOW
    (ASSEGNISTA DI RICERCA FSE TIPO A)

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA - DEI

    Department of Information Engineering,
    Project:
    FONTI 4.0 - Fruizione innovativa di fonti Orali digitalizzate mediante le Nuove Tecnologie dell'Industria creativa 4.0
    Supervisor: Prof. Sergio Canazza
  • Mar 20
    Sep 20
    Pisa

    POSTDOC RESEARCH FELLOW
    (ASSEGNISTA DI RICERCA TIPO A)

    NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF ITALY - CNR

    Institute for Computational Linguistics "A. Zampolli"
    Projects:
    - Valorization of archival heritage - Archivio VI.VO;
    - CLARIN-ERIC: Development of a data repository for storing and archiving linguistics data
    Supervisor: Dott. Monica Monachini
  • Oct 19
    Feb 20
    Padova

    POSTDOC RESEARCH FELLOW
    (BORSISTA DI RICERCA)

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA - DEI

    Department of Information Engineering,
    Project: Models and applications for the valorization of musical heritage.
    Supervisor: Prof. Sergio Canazza
  • Oct 18
    Sep 19
    Padova

    POSTDOC RESEARCH FELLOW
    (ASSEGNISTA DI RICERCA TIPO A)

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA - DEI

    Department of Information Engineering,
    Project: Using Speech Archives: Model and Implementation.
    Supervisor: Prof. Sergio Canazza
  • Oct 17
    Mar 18
    Barcelona

    VISITING RESEARCHER

    UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA - UPF

    Music Technology Group (MTG),
    Project: Collaboration on CompMusic ERC project: data-driven analysis of music corpora.
    Supervisor: Prof. Xavier Serra
  • Oct 15
    Sep 18
    Padova

    PHD STUDENT IN INFORMATION ENGINEERING

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA - DEI

    Department of Information Engineering,
    Thesis: Cultural Context-Aware Models and IT Applications for the Exploitation of Musical Heritage.
    Supervisor: Prof. Sergio Canazza
  • Apr 15
    Sep 15
    Padova

    RESEARCH ASSISTANT
    (ASSEGNISTA DI RICERCA TIPO A)

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA - DBC

    Department of Cultural Heritage,
    Project: Archaeology & Virtual Acoustics. A Pan flute from ancient Egypt.
    Supervisor: Prof. Paola Zanovello
  • Apr 14
    Mar 15
    Padova

    RESEARCH ASSISTANT
    (ASSEGNISTA DI RICERCA FSE TIPO A)

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA - DEI

    Department of Information Engineering,
    Project: Design and development of interactive mobile system for the access to digitized audio documents and artistic multimedia installation.
    Supervisor: Prof. Sergio Canazza
  • Oct 10
    Mar 14
    Padova

    MASTERS DEGREE IN COMPUTER SYSTEM ENGINEERING (LM-32)

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA - DEI

    Department of Information Engineering,
    Title of the thesis: A Model for Accessing Philologically to Audio Documents: a Web-Based Virtualization of a Gramophone to Replay Digitized Shellac Discs
    Supervisor: Prof. Sergio Canazza
  • Sep 06
    Jul 10
    Padova

    BACHELORS DEGREE IN COMPUTER SYSTEM ENGINEERING (Classe 9)

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA - DEI

    Department of Information Engineering,
    Title of the thesis: Vestition of topographic database of IGM using SLD
    Supervisor: Prof. Massimo Rumor
  • OTHER RELEVANT EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCES
  • Jun 16
    Jul 16
    Limassol

    SMC 18 - SUMMERSCHOOL

    CYPRUS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, LIMASSOL, CYPRUS

    Summerschool of the 15th Sound and Music Computing Conference
    Main topics: Computational Ethnomusicology, Soundscape
  • Oct 16
    Dec 16
    Padova

    ACADEMIC ENGLISH COURSE (32 hours)

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA

    Academic English Course for PhD students, organized by Language Centre of University of Padova
  • Aug 16
    Aug 16
    Hamburg

    SMC 16 - SUMMERSCHOOL

    HAMBURG UNIVERSITY OF MUSIC AND THEATRE, GERMANY

    Summerschool of the 13th Sound and Music Computing Conference
    Main topics: Brain-Computer Music Interfaces; Artificial Neural Networks; Networked Music Performance
  • Jul 15
    Jul 15
    Maynooth

    SMC 15 - SUMMERSCHOOL

    UNIVERSITY OF MAYNOOTH, IRELAND

    Summerschool of the 12th Sound and Music Computing Conference
    Main topics: Sound Design for Media and enabling Audio Technologies
.03

PUBLICATIONS

PUBLICATIONS LIST
ALL
SORTING BY DATE
24 OCT 2022
Book Chapter

NOT JUST PAPER: ENHANCEMENT OF ARCHIVE CULTURAL HERITAGE

CLARIN: THE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR LANGUAGE RESOURCES, De Gruyter, ISBN: 9783110767377

Silvia Calamai, Duccio Piccardi, Niccolò Pretto, Giovanni Candeo, Maria Francesca Stamuli, Monica Monachini
10 JUN 2022
Journal Paper

A WORKFLOW AND DIGITAL FILTERS FOR CORRECTING SPEED AND EQUALIZATION ERRORS ON DIGITIZED AUDIO OPEN-REEL MAGNETIC TAPES

JOURNAL OF THE AUDIO ENGINEERING SOCIETY, VOL. 70, ISSUE 6

Niccolò Pretto, Nadir Dalla Pozza, Alberto Padoan, Anthony Chmiel, Kurt James Werner, Alessandra Micalizzi, Emery Schubert, Antonio Rodà, Simone Milani, Sergio Canazza
10 MAY 2022
Journal Paper

AI-BASED MEDIA CODING STANDARDS

SMPTE MOTION IMAGING JOURNAL, VOL. 131, ISSUE 4

Andrea Basso, Paolo Ribeca, Marina Bosi, Niccolò Pretto, Gérard Chollet, Michelangelo Guarise, Miran Choi, Leonardo Chiariglione, Roberto Iacoviello, Franesco Banterle, Alessandro Artusi, Francesco Gissi, Attilio Fiandrotti, Giovanni Ballocca, Marco Mazzaglia, Scott Moskowitz
20 APR 2022
Journal Paper

THE MAGNETIC URTEXT: RESTORATION AS MUSIC INTERPRETATION

FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY, VOL. 13

Sergio Canazza, Emery Schubert, Anthony Chmiel, Niccolò Pretto, Antonio Rodà
18 DEC 2021
Book

TOWARDS PERVASIVE AND TRUSTWORTHY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: HOW STANDARDS CAN PUT A GREAT TECHNOLOGY AT THE SERVICE OF HUMANKIND

Amazon Publishing

Alessandro Artusi, Andrea Basso, Marina Bosi, Sergio Canazza, Leonardo Chiariglione, Miran Choi, Fabiano Columbano, Mert Burkay Çöteli, Nadir Dalla Pozza, Roberto Dini, Michelangelo Guarise, Hüseyin Hacıhabiboğlu, Roberto Iacoviello, Chuanmin Jia, Jisu Kang, Panos Kudumakis, Valeria Lazzaroli, Marco Mazzaglia, Guido Perboli, Niccolò Pretto et al.
15 DEC 2021
International Conferences

AI-BASED MEDIA CODING AND BEYOND

INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING CONVENTION, IBC'21, virtual

Leonardo Chiariglione, Andrea Basso, Paolo Ribeca, Marina Bosi, Niccolò Pretto, Gérard Chollet, Michelangelo Guarise, Miran Choi, Fathy Yassa, Roberto Iacoviello et al.
09 DEC 2021
International Conferences

FONTI 4.0: EVALUATING SPEECH-TO-TEXT AUTOMATIC TRANSCRIPTION OF DIGITIZED HISTORICAL ORAL SOURCES

EIGHTH ITALIAN CONFERENCE ON COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS, CLIC-it'21

Roberta Bianca Luzietti, Niccolò Pretto Frédéric Kaplan, Alain Dufaux, Sergio Canazza
01 SEP 2021
International Conferences

A WORKFLOW AND NOVEL DIGITAL FILTERS FOR COMPENSATING SPEED AND EQUALIZATION ERRORS ON DIGITIZED AUDIO OPEN-REEL TAPES

AUDIO MOSTLY 2021, AM'21, virtual

Niccolò Pretto, Nadir Dalla Pozza, Alberto Padoan, Anthony Chmiel, Kurt James Werner, Alessandra Micalizzi, Emery Schubert, Antonio Rodà, Simone Milani, Sergio Canazza
29 JUN 2021
International Conferences

SOUND AND MUSIC COMPUTING USING AI: DESIGNING A STANDARD

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 18TH SOUND AND MUSIC COMPUTING CONFERENCE 2021, SMC'21, virtual

Marina Bosi, Niccolò Pretto, Michelangelo Guarise, Sergio Canazza
22 JUN 2021
International Conferences

COMMUNITY-BASED SURVEY AND ORAL ARCHIVE INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE ARCHIVIO VI.VO. PROJECT

SELECTED PAPERS FROM THE CLARIN ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2020, Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 180

Silvia Calamai, Niccolò Pretto, Maria Francesca Stamuli, Duccio Piccardi, Giovanni Candeo, Silvia Bianchi, Monica Monachini
20 MAY 2021
Book Chapter

ARCHIVI DI MUSICA ELETTROACUSTICA: DALLA CONSERVAZIONE ALL'ACCESSO

I DOCUMENTI SONORI. VOCE, SUONO, MUSICA IN ARCHIVI E RACCOLTE, ABP, ISBN: 978-88-8262-272-5

Valentina Burini, Sergio Canazza, Niccolò Pretto
30 MAR 2021
Journal Paper

MULTIMEDIA ARCHIVES: NEW DIGITAL FILTERS TO CORRECT EQUALIZATION ERRORS ON DIGITIZED AUDIO TAPES

ADVANCES IN MULTIMEDIA, HINDAWI, VOL. 2021

Niccolò Pretto, Edoardo Micheloni, Anthony Chmiel, Nadir Dalla Pozza, Dario Marinello, Emery Schubert, Sergio Canazza
19 NOV 2020
International Conferences

THE GREY-SIDE OF AUDIO ARCHIVES

CONFERENCE OF 22ND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON GREY LITERATURE: APPLICATIONS OF GREY LITERATURE FOR SCIENCE AND SOCIETY, GL 2020, virtual event (2020)

Monica Monachini, Maria Francesca Stamuli, Silvia Calamai, Niccolò Pretto, Silvia Bianchi
05 OCT 2020
International Conferences

BUILDING A HOME FOR ITALIAN AUDIO ARCHIVES

PROCEEDINGS OF CLARIN ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2020, virtual event (2020)

Silvia Calamai, Niccolò Pretto, Monica Monachini, Maria Francesca Stamuli, Silvia Bianchi, Pierangelo Bonazzoli
19 JUL 2020
International Conferences

ACOUSTIC EXPERIENCES FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE SITES: A PILOT EXPERIMENT ON SPONTANEOUS VISITORS’ INTEREST

PROCEEDINGS OF CULTURE AND COMPUTING. HCII 2020. LECTURE NOTES IN COMPUTER SCIENCE, vol 12215. Springer, Cham. (2020)

Vincenzo Norman Vitale, Marco Olivieri, Antonio Origlia, Niccolò Pretto, Antonio Rodà, Francesco Cutugno
24 JUN 2020
International Conferences

ACTIVE PRESERVATION OF ANALOGUE AUDIO DOCUMENTS: A SUMMARY OF THE LAST SEVEN YEARS OF DIGITIZATION AT CSC

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 17TH SOUND AND MUSIC COMPUTING CONFERENCE 2020, SMC'20,Torino, Italy (2020)

Niccolò Pretto, Alessandro Russo, Federica Bressan, Valentina Burini, Antonio Rodà, Sergio Canazza
07 JUN 2020
Conferences

L’INFORMATICA PER LA GESTIONE E LA CONSERVAZIONE DI INFORMAZIONI ACUSTICHE (MUSICA E VOCE)

STUDI AISV 6, Associazione Italiana Scienze della Voce, Arezzo, Italy (2020)

Alessandro Russo, Niccolò Pretto, Antonio Rodà, Sergio Canazza
29 MAY 2020
Journal Paper

TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED INTERACTION WITH CULTURAL HERITAGE: AN ANTIQUE PAN FLUTE FROM EGYPT

ACM JOURNAL ON COMPUTING AND CULTURAL HERITAGE (JOCCH), VOL. 13, ISSUE 2

Niccolò Pretto, Edoardo Micheloni, Silvia Gasparotto, Carlo Fantozzi, Giovanni De Poli, Sergio Canazza
19 MAY 2019
Journal Paper

COMPUTING METHODOLOGIES SUPPORTING THE PRESERVATION OF ELECTROACOUSTIC MUSIC FROM ANALOG MAGNETIC TAPE

COMPUTER MUSIC JOURNAL, VOL. 42, ISSUE 4

Niccolò Pretto, Carlo Fantozzi, Edoardo Micheloni, Valentina Burini, Sergio Canazza
01 APR 2019
Journal Paper

ACTIVE PRESERVATION OF LUCIANO BERIO’S AUDIO DOCUMENTS                                           

MITTEILUNGEN DER PAUL SACHER STIFTUNG, VOL. 32, PP. 20-25

Alessandro Russo, Matthias Kassel, Sergio Canazza, Niccolò Pretto
18 MAR 2019
Conferences

QUELLE VOCI POCO FA: L’INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE A CONTRASTARE L’ECLISSE DELLE MEMORIE SONORE

PROCEEDINGS OF 1ST CONVEGNO NAZIONALE CINI SULL'INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE, Ital-IA, Roma, Italy (2019)

Sergio Canazza, Carlo Fantozzi, Niccolò Pretto, Antonio Rodà, Anthony Chmiel, Emery Schubert
14 FEB 2019
Thesis

CULTURAL CONTEXT-AWARE MODELS AND IT APPLICATIONS FOR THE EXPLOITATION OF MUSICAL HERITAGE

PHD THESIS IN INFORMATION ENGINEERING, DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION ENGINEERING OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA, Supervisor: Sergio Canazza

Niccolò Pretto
01 DEC 2018
Journal Paper

PAMU: A MULTIMEDIA PARK TO ENHANCE THE RENAISSANCE WALLS OF PADUA

DISEGNARECON, VOL. 11, ISSUE 21

Emanuela De Feo, Eleonora Angela Venier, Alessandro Russo, Matteo Breschigliaro, Niccolò Pretto
28 NOV 2018
International Conferences

THE "GOOD OR BAD?" GAME: STIMULATING LISTENING SKILLS THROUGH PLAYFUL ENGAGEMENT

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 4TH EAI INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SMART OBJECTS AND TECHNOLOGIES FOR SOCIAL GOOD, Goodtechs'18, Bologna, Italy (2018)

Marcella Mandanici, Federico Altieri, Niccolò Pretto, Matteo Munaro, Sergio Canazza, Emanuele Menegatti
28 SEP 2018
International Conferences

AN OPEN CORPUS FOR THE COMPUTATIONAL RESEARCH OF ARAB-ANDALUSIAN MUSIC

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 5TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DIGITAL LIBRARIES FOR MUSICOLOGY, DLfM'18, Paris, France (2018)

Rafael Caro Repetto, Niccolò Pretto, Amin Chaachoo, Baris Bozkurt, Xavier Serra
02 JUL 2018
International Conferences

NAWBA RECOGNITION FOR ARAB-ANDALUSIAN MUSIC USING TEMPLATES FROM MUSIC SCORES

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 15TH SOUND AND MUSIC COMPUTING CONFERENCE 2018, SMC'18, Limassol, Cyprus (2018)

Niccolò Pretto, Baris Bozkurt, Rafael Caro Repetto, Xavier Serra
01 FEB 2018
Journal Paper

STAY TRUE TO THE SOUND OF HISTORY: PHILOLOGY, PHYLOGENETICS AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING IN MUSICOLOGY

APPLIED SCIENCES, VOL. 8, ISSUE 2 - PP. 226-240

Sebastiano Verde, Niccolò Pretto, Simone Milani, Sergio Canazza
14 NOV 2017
International Conferences

A STEP TOWARD AI TOOLS FOR QUALITY CONTROL AND MUSICOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF DIGITIZED ANALOGUE RECORDINGS: RECOGNITION OF AUDIO TAPE EQUALIZATIONS

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11TH INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE, AI*CH'17, Bari, Italy (2017)

Edoardo Micheloni, Niccolò Pretto, Canazza Sergio
28 FEB 2017
Journal Paper

TAPE MUSIC ARCHIVES: FROM PRESERVATION TO ACCESS                                            

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON DIGITAL LIBRARIES, VOL. 18, ISSUE 3 - SPRINGER

Carlo Fantozzi, Federica Bressan, Niccolò Pretto, Sergio Canazza
28 SEP 2016
Conferences

INSTALLAZIONI INTERATTIVE PER LA VALORIZZAZIONE DI STRUMENTI MUSICALI ANTICHI: IL FLAUTO DI PAN DEL MUSEO DI SCIENZE ARCHEOLOGICHE E D’ARTE DELL’UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA

PROCEEDINGS OF THE XXI COLLOQUIUM OF MUSICAL INFORMATICS, XXI CIM, Cagliari, Italy (2016)

Edoardo Micheloni, Niccolò Pretto, Federico Avanzini, Sergio Canazza, Antonio Rodà
31 AUG 2016
International Conferences

VIRTUAL RECONSTRUCTION OF AN ANCIENT GREEK PAN FLUTE

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 13TH SOUND AND MUSIC COMPUTING CONFERENCE 2016, SMC'16, Hamburg, Germany (2016)

Federico Avanzini, Canazza Sergio, Giovanni De Poli, Carlo Fantozzi, Edoardo Micheloni, Niccolò Pretto, Antonio Roda', Silvia Gasparotto, Giuseppe Salemi
1 OCT 2015
Journal Paper

ACCESSING TAPE MUSIC DOCUMENTS ON MOBILE DEVICES

ACM TRANSACTIONS ON MULTIMEDIA COMPUTING, COMMUNICATIONS, AND APPLICATIONS (TOMM)

Sergio Canazza, Carlo Fantozzi, Niccolò Pretto
30 JUL 2015
International Conferences

ARCHAEOLOGY AND VIRTUAL ACOUSTICS. A PAN FLUTE FROM ANCIENT EGYPT

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 12TH SOUND AND MUSIC COMPUTING CONFERENCE, SMC'15, Maynooth, Ireland (2015)

Federico Avanzini, Sergio Canazza, Giovanni De Poli, Carlo Fantozzi, Niccolò Pretto, Antonio Rodà, Ivana Angelini, Cinzia Bettin et al.
20 OCT 2014
Conferences

REWIND: SIMULAZIONE DI UN’ESPERIENZA D’ASCOLTO STORICAMENTE FEDELE DI DISCHI FONOGRAFICI DIGITALIZZATI

PROCEEDINGS OF THE XX COLLOQUIUM OF MUSICAL INFORMATICS, XX CIM, Roma, Italy (2014)

Niccolò Pretto, Sergio Canazza
.04

RESEARCH

CURRENT PROJECTS

IT4aREC

I am the principal investigator of the IT4aREC project. It aims to design innovative algorithms and to develop new software tools for (a) validating digital preservation copies, (b) restoring and analyzing preservation copies, (c) supporting the creation of archival units available to researchers and/or common audience and (d) evaluating the suitability of blockchain technologies for long-term preservation of audio recordings. It is highly multidisciplinary and involves several national and international collaborations. For the development of the restoration workflow and filters for compensating speed and equalization errors occurred during the digitization of audio open-reel tapes as well as for their validation I am currently collaborating with several national and international researchers and professionals, such as prof. Emery Schubert (University of New South Wales, AU) and Dr. Kurt James Warner (Izotope Inc., US). IT4aREC is also closely linked to Archivio Vi.Vo. and FONTI 4.0 projects where I worked as postdoctoral researcher and I am currently collaborating with. They are described in the following sections.

ARCHIVIO VI.VO.

Archivio Vi.Vo. is an Italian project financed by the Region of Tuscany, aiming to: (i) explore methods for long-term preservation and secure access to oral sources, and (ii) develop an infrastructure under the CLARIN-IT umbrella, offering several services for scholars from different domains interested in oral sources. In this project, I developed the methodology, and I am co-supervising the development of a platform for the preservation and access to oral sources collaborating with prof. Silvia Calamai (University of Siena and Principal Investigator of the project), Dr. Monica Monachini (Institute of Computational Linguistics, CNR, Pisa and coordinator of CLARIN-IT), Dr. Maria Francesca Stamuli (Soprintendenza archivistica e bibliografica della Toscana). This platform will be deployed in the Italian Gruppo per l'Armonizzazione delle Reti della Ricerca (GARR) infrastructure as service in the European Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure (CLARIN). The algorithms and tools of IT4aREC will be integrated in the platform.

FONTI 4.0

The project FONTI 4.0 is funded by the Veneto Region though the European Social Funding. The goal is to automatize the extraction of information from analog oral sources through an automatic transcription chain. The steps of the project are: (1) detecting and correcting errors that could occur during the digitized recordings (equalization and speed errors), (2) transcribing the content through existing commercial software, (3) analyzing the transcribed text to identify information such as date, location, important names, etc., and (4) developing an interface for searching and playing digitized oral sources. In this project I am co-supervising the development of the overall transcription chain for automatically analyzing the contents of historical oral sources. This project will adopt algorithms of IT4aREC for the restoration of digitized recordings. I am actively collaborating with prof. Frederic Kaplan (head of Digital Humanities Laboratory of École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne ‐ EPFL), Dr. Alain Dufaux (Cultural Heritage & Innovation Center, EPFL, CH) and Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venezia.

MPAI

From February 2021 I am a member of the Moving Picture, Audio and Data Coding by Artificial Intelligence (MPAI) community (mpai.community) aiming at Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled digital data compression specifications. I am part of the Context-based Audio Enhancement (CAE) and Multimodal Conversation (MMC) standard groups, mainly working at the Audio Recording Preservation (ARP) standardization. The community involves researchers and companies all around the world, but the most valuable collaborators are Leonardo Chiariglione (co-founder of Moving Picture Experts Group - MPEG - and MPAI president) and prof. Marina Bosi (University of Stanford, US).

VADEMECUM PER IL TRATTAMENTO DELLE FONTI ORALI

From 2018 I am part of an Italian national working group aiming to define the guidelines for the production, preservation and valorization of oral sources named as Vademecum per il trattamento delle fonti orali . This multidisciplinary group involves (a) Italian universities such as Ca’ Foscari University and University of Siena, (b) several Italian central institutes of the Ministry of Culture such as Direzione generale Archivi, Istituto centrale per gli Archivi, Istituto centrale per i beni sonori e audiovisivi, Istituto centrale per il catalogo e la documentazione, as well as association such as Associazione italiana di storia orale and Associazione italiana scienze della voce. I am a member of the "preservation of oral archives" and "use and re-use of oral sources" working groups.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

HISTORICAL AUDIO RECORDINGS

My research interests are primarily focused on the development of tools and interfaces for preserving, restoring, accessing and making use of historical audio recordings. My first contribution on the field was the development of web and mobile interfaces that virtualize 78 rpm gramophone and tape recorders and their physical carrier to recreate the listening conditions of the time. Further interfaces are under development for managing all the steps of the life cycle of magnetic tapes such as the creation of preservation copies, the restoration, cataloging and access to the digitized documents, aiming to create a platform for the preservation and access of audio documents, which will be integrated in the CLARIN-ERIC infrastructure. All the previous interfaces need several tools for the detection of errors and the analysis of the multimedia content. For this reason, my research interest involves the development of automatic tools based on signal processing and machine learning techniques tackling these complex problems. All these works are set in the research fields of sound and music computing.

INTERACTIVE MUSEUM INSTALLATIONS

In recent decades the role of many museums has evolved from preserving and displaying artifacts to that of institutions focused on the education and entertainment of visitors. To this end, museum curators strive to design and implement exhibitions that offer an educational yet also enjoyable experience. For these reasons interactive multimedia installations, augmented and virtual reality applications, and mobile apps are increasingly widespread. Often historical or modern musical instruments are presented in museums and exhibitions. While there are numerous instrument types, a visitor must physically interact with them in order to properly understand them. Usually this is impossible as preservation policies make the artifact inaccessible, or because degradation makes the instrument unusable. The proposed approach is to transpose the concepts of passive and active preservation from historical audio documents to the field of physical artifacts and musical instruments. In this context, passive preservation is meant to preserve the original instruments from external agents without altering their components, while active preservation involves a new design of the instruments using new components or a virtual simulation of the instruments. The project "Archaeology and virtual acoustics" provided an interesting case study. It concerns an exceptionally well-preserved ancient pan flute, most likely of Greek origin, recovered in Egypt in the 1930’s and now exhibited in the Museum of Archaeological Sciences and Art (MSA), University of Padova. It was during this project, that I entered this multidisciplinary research area, specifically by managing the development of an interactive museum installation that virtually recreates the instrument, and communicates different aspects related to history, iconography, acoustics, musicology, etc. This installation is now permanently exhibited at MSA.

.05

TEACHING

  • CURRENT
  • 2023
    2022

    ADJUNCT PROFESSOR and RESPONSIBLE of the Course: FOUNDATIONS OF COMPUTER SCIENCE (C) - 6 CFU

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA

    Bachelors Degrees in Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
    More info here.
  • 2022
    2014

    ASSISTANT SUPERVISOR FOR 31 MASTERS AND BACHELORS THESES

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA

    Supervisors:
    - prof. Sergio Canazza;
    - prof. Antonio Rodà;
    - prof. Augusto Sarti;
    - prof. Carlo Fantozzi.
  • PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES
  • 2022
    2021

    TEACHING ASSISTANT (Didattica Integrativa) - Course: FOUNDATIONS OF COMPUTER SCIENCE (16 hours)

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA

    Bachelors Degrees in Computer Science Engineering
    Course 1: prof. Cinzia Pizzi
    Course 2: prof. Andrea Loreggia
    Course 3: prof. Laura Bazzanella
  • 2020
    2021

    SEMINAR TEACHING, EXAM COMMITTEE - Course: COMPUTER SCIENCE FOR MUSIC AND MULTIMEDIA

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA

    Masters Degree in Information Engineering
    - prof. Sergio Canazza
  • 2020
    2015

    PROJECTS TUTOR, SEMINAR TEACHING, EXAM COMMITTEE - Course: SOUND AND MUSIC COMPUTING

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA

    Masters Degree in Information Engineering
    - prof. Federico Avanzini
    - prof. Sergio Canazza
    - prof. Giovanni De Poli
    - prof. Antonio Rodà
  • 2020
    2019

    TEACHING ASSISTANT (Didattica Integrativa) - Course: FUNDAMENTAL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE (20 hours)

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA

    Bachelors Degrees in Computer Science Engineering
    Course 1: prof. Cinzia Pizzi
    Course 2: prof. Sergio Canazza
    Course 3: prof. Adriano Luchetta
    Course 4: prof. Laura Bazzanella
  • 2019
    2018

    TEACHING ASSISTANT (Didattica Integrativa) - Course: EMBEDDED SYSTEM PROGRAMMING (32 hours)

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA

    Masters and Bachelors Degrees in Computer Science Engineering
    prof. Carlo Fantozzi
  • 2018
    2017

    LAB. TUTOR - Course: COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE (94 hours)

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA

    Bachelors Degree in Information Engineering
    Course 1: prof. Matteo Comin
    Course 2: prof. Emanuele Menegatti
    Course 3: prof. Antonio Rodà
    Course 4: prof. Francesco Silvestri
  • 2017
    2016

    LAB. TUTOR - Course: FUNDAMENTAL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE (100 hours)

    UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA

    Bachelors Degree in Information Engineering
    Course 1: prof. Federico Avanzini
    Course 2: prof. Sergio Canazza
    Course 3: prof. Marcello Dalpasso
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WORKS

HISTORICAL AUDIO RECORDINGS






ARCHAEOLOGY AND VIRTUAL ACOUSTIC




ARAB-ANDALUSIAN CORPUS

Four notebooks to download and analyse data and metadata from the Arab Andalusian Corpus of Dunya have been developed. The software is available at the following link: https://github.com/MTG/andalusian-corpus-notebooks This repository contains four notebooks:

  • Corpus.ipynb: to download data and metadata from the Corpus, to compute the pitch profile, distribution and the tonic frequency of each recording;
  • Metadata.ipynb: to group, visualize and analyse metadata;
  • NawbaPitchAnalysis.ipynb: to visualize pitch distribution and note/class distribution of a single recording or of a group of them.
  • NawbaRecognition.ipynb: to compute several experiments to evaluate the performance on nawba recognition of algorithms based on templates derived from scores.
The dataset is available at the following link: https://github.com/MTG/andalusian-corpus-notebooks

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CONTACT

Get in touch

Send me a mail at niccolo.pretto_at_dei.unipd.it