A hybrid virtual bass system for optimized steady-state and transient performance

Abstract

Bandwidth extension of a constrained loudspeaker system is regularly achieved employing nonlinear bass synthesis. The method operates on the doctrine of the missing fundamental whereby humans infer the presence of a fundamental tone when presented with a signal consisting of higher harmonics of said tone. Nonlinear devices and phase vocoders are commonly used for signal generation; both exhibiting deficiencies. A system is proposed where the two approaches are used in tandem via a mixing algorithm to suppress these deficiencies. Mixing is performed by signal transient content analysis in the frequency domain using constant-Q transforms. The hybrid approach is rated subjectively against various nonlinear device and phase vocoder techniques using the MUSHRA test method.

Bass Enhancement Settings in Portable Devices Based on Music Genre Recognition

“…In the method proposed by Hill and Hawksford [2] the main point is the detection of transient states. Then, the signal is subjected to processing by the PV or NLD method.…”

“…The method uses a transient detector, which operates in CQT transform. On the basis of the analysis, appropriate weights to the signals processed by the NLD and PV methods are selected [2]. A new approach that first separates musical signals into transient and steadystate components, and then applies NLD and PV on the separated signals was proposed by Mu et al [1].…”

“…In order to exploit the advantages of both methods hybrid systems are proposed in the literature [1,2]. In the method proposed by Hill and Hawksford [2] the main point is the detection of transient states.…”

“…Improving the low frequency sound of mobile devices is a problem that appears in many studies [1,2]. Most of the algorithms increase the power of low frequencies to enhance low frequency sound.…”

Automatic music genre classification based on musical instrument track separation

“…Recently, a paper was published by one of the authors and her Ph.D. student (Hoffmann and Kostek 2015), which presents a novel approach to the Virtual Bass Synthesis (VBS) applied to mobile devices, called Smart VBS (SVBS). Improving the low frequency sound of mobile devices is a problem that appears in many studies (Hill and Hawksford 2010;Gan 2012, 2015;Oo et al 2000). The proposed algorithm uses a rule-based settings of bass synthesis parameters adjusted according to the recognized music genre.…”