Comparative Study of Musical Timbral Variations: Crescendo and Vibrato Using FFT-Acoustic Descriptor

Abstract

A quantitative evaluation of the musical timbre and its variations is important for the analysis of audio recordings and computer-aided music composition. Using the FFT acoustic descriptors and their representation in an abstract timbral space, variations in a sample of monophonic sounds of chordophones (violin, cello) and aerophones (trumpet, transverse flute, and clarinet) sounds are analyzed. It is concluded that the FFT acoustic descriptors allow us to distinguish the timbral variations in the musical dynamics, including crescendo and vibrato. Furthermore, using the Random Forest algorithm, it is shown that the FFT-Acoustic provides a statistically significant classification to distinguish musical instruments, families of instruments, and dynamics. We observed an improvement in the FFT-Acoustic descriptors when classifying pitch compared to some timbral features of Librosa.

Keywords

• FFT-acoustic descriptor
• timbral variations
• Random Forest algorithm
• musical acoustics