Live Instruments, on a Laptop

Computer-generated music tends to sound eerily pristine—a great quality for a group like Kraftwerk, but a problem for any musician trying to recreate the sound of live instrumentation. Steve Tipei, a professor of music and composition theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is working to make digital songs sound more like something you might actually hear in a concert hall. Mr. Tipei has designed software that can simulate the performance of real musicians by playing slight, random improvisations as it runs through a piece. (The News-Gazette)