Multidimensional analysis of timbres of complex tones
Kengo Ohgushi · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1978
In order to investigate the relation between physical parameters and timbre of complex tones, three-frequency complex tones were synthesized on a digital computer. Subjects made similarity judgments of pairs of the complex tones and the experimental data were analyzed by Kruscal's multidimensional scaling program. Recent investigation [J. R. Miller and E. C. Carterette, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 58, 711–720 (1975)] shows that fundamental frequency, amplitude envelope and number of harmonics are important determinants of timbre. Therefore, the above three physical parameters were held constant in our study. That is, the complex tones had a fundamental frequency of 300 Hz, trapezoidal amplitude envelope with rise-fall time of 50 ms and three frequency components. Analysis of data showed that the lowest and the highest component frequencies were the most important physical parameters governing timbre of three-frequency complex tones. Furthermore, it was shown that time structures of tone waveform were factors governing timbre.