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Convention Paper

Long-term Average Spectrum in Popular Music and its Relation to the Level of the Percussion

Authors: Elowsson, Anders; Friberg, Anders

AES Convention 142 · Paper 9762 · May 2017

Abstract

The spectral distribution of music audio has an important influence on listener perception, but large-scale characterizations are lacking. Therefore, the long-term average spectrum (LTAS) was analyzed for a large dataset of popular music. The mean LTAS was computed, visualized, and then approximated with two quadratic fittings. The fittings were subsequently used to derive the spectrum slope. By applying harmonic/percussive source separation, the relationship between LTAS and percussive prominence was investigated. A clear relationship was found; tracks with more percussion have a relatively higher LTAS in the bass and high frequencies. We show how this relationship can be used to improve targets in automatic equalization. Furthermore, we assert that variations in LTAS between genres is mainly a side-effect of percussive prominence.

Details

Published in
AES Convention 142
AES Convention
142
Paper number
9762
Publication date
May 6, 2017
Session subject
Audio Analysis and Synthesis
Affiliation
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden (See document for exact affiliation information.)
Type
Convention Paper