Long-term Average Spectrum in Popular Music and its Relation to the Level of the Percussion
Anders Elowsson, Anders Friberg · KTH Publication Database DiVA (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) · 2017
The spectral distribution of music audio has an important influence on listener perception, but large-scale charac- terizations 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 sepa- ration, 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.