Semantic Description of Timbral Transformations in Music Production

Stables, Ryan; Man, Brecht De; Enderby, Sean; Reiss, Joshua D.; Fazekas, György; Wilmering, Thomas

doi:10.1145/2964284.2967238

Cited by 13 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 12 publications

(9 reference statements)

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“…Similarly, the subject of adaptive audio effects, where configuration is determined by high-level semantic metadata, has been discussed by Wilmering et al [43]. An understanding of perceived effects of audio transformation may also inform the design of production related ontologies [16], while such data can be encoded semantically to aid production tools [17,39] and help, for instance, the design or assessment of intelligent tools for automatic control of audio effects [38].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Audio Effects Processing on the Perception of Brightness and Warmth

Bromham

Moffat

Barthet

et al. 2019

Proceedings of the 14th International Audio Mostly Conference: A Journey in Sound

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It is not uncommon to hear musicians and audio engineers speak of warmth and brightness when describing analog technologies such as vintage mixing consoles, multitrack tape machines, and valve compressors. What is perhaps less common, is hearing this term used in association with retro digital technology. A question exists as to how much the low bit rate and low-grade conversion quality contribute to the overall brightness or warmth of a sound when processed with audio effects simulating early sampling technologies. These two dimensions of timbre are notoriously difficult to define and more importantly, measure. We present a subjective user study of brightness and warmth, where a series of audio examples are processed with different audio effects. 26 participants rated the perceived level of brightness and warmth of various instrumental sequences for 5 different audio effects including bit depth reduction, compression and equalisation. Results show that 8 bit reduction tends to increase brightness and decrease warmth whereas 12 bit reduction tends to do the opposite, although this is very much dependent on the instrument. Interestingly, the most significant brightness changes, due to bit reduction, were obtained for bass sounds. For comparison purposes, instrument phrases were also processed with both an analogue compressor and an equalisation plugin to see if any subjective difference was noticed when simulating sonic characteristics that might be associated with warmth. Greater significance was observed when the sound excerpts were processed with the plugins being used to simulate the effects of bit depth reduction. CCS Concepts: • Information systems → Speech / audio search; • Applied computing → Sound and music computing; Media arts; • Computing methodologies → Perception; • Software and its engineering → Semantics.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Audio Effects Processing on the Perception of Brightness and Warmth

Bromham

Moffat

Barthet

et al. 2019

Proceedings of the 14th International Audio Mostly Conference: A Journey in Sound

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…For instance in [26], audio analysis and pattern recognition is used to enable recalling DRC parameters in similar musical contexts. The authors in [27] propose a system to configure audio effects, including the DRC, using semantic descriptors associated with crowed-sourced parameters, and show there is consistency across users in the use of semantic terms and intended modifications to the signal. An approach to reduce the number of user configurable parameters of the DRC is presented in [28].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intelligent Control Method for the Dynamic Range Compressor: A User Study

Singh¹,

Bromham²,

Di³

et al. 2021

J. Audio Eng. Soc.

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Music producers and casual users often seek to replicate dynamic range compression used in a particular recording or production context for their own track. However, not knowing the parameter settings used to produce the audio using the effect may become an impediment, especially for beginners or untrained users who may lack critical listening skills. We address this issue by presenting an automatic compressor plugin relying on a neural network to extract relevant features from a reference signal and estimate compression parameters. The plugin automatically adjusts its parameters to match the input signal with a reference audio recording as closely as possible. Quantitative and qualitative usability evaluation of the plugin was conducted with amateur, pro-amateur and professional music producers. The results established acceptance of the core idea behind the proposed control method across these user groups.

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“…Rather than developing a web-based system, Stables et al (2014) chose to enhance the functionality of desktop based digital audio workstations through semantic control. The SAFE plug-ins (short for Semantic Audio Feature Extraction ( Stables et al, 2014 )) provide both parametric management and visualization tools with a semantic representation for a particular feature or grouping of features. SAFE makes use of semantic tags to control the parameters of functionalities such as equalization, distortion, compression and reverberation.…”

Section: Expanding the Sound Sphere Metaphormentioning

confidence: 99%

Semantic strategies in ubiquitous music: Deploying the sound sphere ecology in transitional settings

Keller¹,

Freitas²,

Bessa³

et al. 2020

Heliyon

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We report the results of a study involving twenty subjects doing musical activities in transitional settings, supported by an ecology of tools based on the metaphor for creative action Sound Sphere. The Sound Sphere Ecology (SFS) is a set of web-based tools, loosely organized around audio mixing and processing tasks. It employs verbal strategies for knowledge transfer to provide support for lay participants and specialists. To understand how the stakeholders influence and are influenced by this design strategy, we carried out a series of experiments involving assessments of the participants' behaviours and of the sonic products during various creative musical tasks with SFS. The overall results were positive, indicating that the proposed metaphor provides effective support for casual interaction, highlighting the participants' level of engagement. As a downside, the assessments pointed to ease of use as the lowest and less consistent item among the rated creative factors. We discuss the implications of these results and propose various design enhancements to enable the usage of a larger pool of resources. Considering the heterogeneous profiles of casual stakeholders, methodological refinements are also proposed to assess the knowledge gained by the participants during the exploratory activities, while augmenting their ability to share knowledge. This is one of the first studies on creativity-action metaphors for casual interaction.

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Semantic Description of Timbral Transformations in Music Production

Cited by 13 publications

References 12 publications

The Impact of Audio Effects Processing on the Perception of Brightness and Warmth

The Impact of Audio Effects Processing on the Perception of Brightness and Warmth

Intelligent Control Method for the Dynamic Range Compressor: A User Study

Semantic strategies in ubiquitous music: Deploying the sound sphere ecology in transitional settings

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