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Improving Time-Scale Modification of Music Signals Using Harmonic-Percussive Separation
Open accessAbstract
A major problem in time-scale modification (TSM) of music signals is that percussive transients are often perceptually degraded. To prevent this degradation, some TSM approaches try to explicitly identify transients in the input signal and to handle them in a special way. However, such approaches are problematic for two reasons. First, errors in the transient detection have an immediate influence on the final TSM result and, second, a perceptual transparent preservation of transients is by far not a trivial task. In this paper we present a TSM approach that handles transients implicitly by first separating the signal into a harmonic component as well as a percussive component which typically contains the transients. While the harmonic component is modified with a phase vocoder approach using a large frame size, the noise-like percussive component is modified with a simple time-domain overlap-add technique using a short frame size, which preserves the transients to a high degree without any explicit transient detection.
Overview
CoChat Summary
TL;DR
The paper proposes a time-scale modification method that separates music into harmonic and percussive components, applies a phase vocoder to the harmonic part and overlap-add to the percussive part, then recombines them. In a listening experiment, this harmonic-percussive approach preserved transients well and was significantly better than phase vocoder, WSOLA, and a transient-handling phase vocoder, and comparable to commercial élastique.
Key findings
- The proposed harmonic-percussive (HP) method and commercial élastique (EL) performed significantly better than the remaining three tested algorithms: phase vocoder with identity phase locking (PV), Nagel and Walther’s transient-preserving phase vocoder (NW), and WSOLA (WS).
- For highly percussive excerpts such as Bongo, CastanetsViolin, and DrumSolo, HP outperformed all other tested TSM procedures; it also scored best for complex mixtures Jazz, Pop, and Stepdad.
- HP performed significantly better than PV on average and was comparable in quality to EL on the tested dataset.
- HP performed worse for SynthMono, attributed to phase vocoder “phasiness,” and for SingingVoice, where the harmonic-percussive separation was problematic because human voice is neither clearly harmonic nor clearly percussive; for SingingVoice, PV scored better than HP.
Methods
- The proposed method first separates the input into harmonic and percussive components using an STFT-based median-filtering harmonic-percussive separation with binary masks. The harmonic component is modified with a phase vocoder using a large frame size of 4096 samples at 22050 Hz, identity phase locking, and amplitude rescaling; the percussive component is modified with time-domain overlap-add using a small frame size of 256 samples. The two modified components are superimposed.
- Evaluation was an online listening experiment comparing five TSM algorithms: HP, EL, PV, NW, and WS. The dataset comprised ten short audio excerpts covering purely percussive, monophonic, highly polyphonic, synthetic, and professionally mixed studio recordings. Each excerpt was stretched with a moderate and a stronger stretching factor, yielding 100 test items total.
- Twenty-two people, most with a background in audio signal processing, rated the five TSM results per excerpt on a five-point mean opinion score scale from 1 (bad) to 5 (excellent). Results are reported as mean opinion scores.
Limitations
- The paper states that systematic experiments on choosing optimal values for the STFT frame size and median filter length are left as future work; it also notes phasiness artifacts in the harmonic component for SynthMono and problematic harmonic-percussive separation for SingingVoice, with future work needed to reduce phasiness and better handle signals that are neither clearly harmonic nor clearly percussive.
- The text makes evident that the listening evaluation used only ten excerpts and 22 listeners, and although it reports “significantly” better performance, no statistical test details are provided.
- The text makes evident that the reported parameter settings are fixed for the tested sampling rates, and the paper notes that only the ratio between sampling rate and frame size was found important for separation, while optimal parameter choices remain unexamined.
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0 Valid · 4 Not valid · 10 Not checked · 33 Own results and interpretations
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“As for the percussive component, we found out that applying a simple time-domain overlap-add method (OLA) yields surprisingly good TSM results when using a very small frame size.”
§ Improving Time-Scale Modification of Music Signals Using Harmonic-Percussive Separation > I. INTRODUCTION
plainstates a cause- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- Rests on an assumption not shown here.
A result the paper states — it cites no source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Although OLA is considered a poor TSM technique in particular for harmonic sounds, it is capable of preserving the sound of transients without any explicit transient detection.”
- Also stated in: § III. TIME-SCALE MODIFICATION · plain
“The conclusion is that OLA can be used to modify noise-like signals, while preserving transients without any explicit transient detection step.”
§ Improving Time-Scale Modification of Music Signals Using Harmonic-Percussive Separation > I. INTRODUCTION
plainstates a cause- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- Rests on an assumption not shown here.
- Also stated in: § III. TIME-SCALE MODIFICATION · plain
The paper states this without a source or data behind it here, so there is nothing to check it against. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“One main observation is that the percussive component contains, besides other noise-like sounds, all the transients.”
§ Improving Time-Scale Modification of Music Signals Using Harmonic-Percussive Separation > I. INTRODUCTION
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“This also explains why the native phase vocoder PV scores better than HP for this excerpt.”
§ Improving Time-Scale Modification of Music Signals Using Harmonic-Percussive Separation > IV. EVALUATION
plainSingle case- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“In further experiments it showed that for obtaining such results only the ratio between the sampling rate and the frame size is important.”
§ Improving Time-Scale Modification of Music Signals Using Harmonic-Percussive Separation > III. TIME-SCALE MODIFICATION
plainstates a cause- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“While OLA is unsuited for modifying audio signals with harmonic content, it delivers high quality results for purely percussive signals, as is the case with drum or castanet recordings [8].”
From A Review of Time-Scale Modification of Music Signals (2016) · cites this paper as [8]
In the citing paper
“However, it is possible to substantially reduce artifacts by combining different TSM approaches.”
From A Review of Time-Scale Modification of Music Signals (2016) · cites this paper as [8]
In the citing paper
“The idea of a recent TSM procedure proposed in [8] is to combine PV-TSM and OLA in order to modify both harmonic and percussive sound components with high quality.”
From A Review of Time-Scale Modification of Music Signals (2016) · cites this paper as [8]
In the citing paper
“By treating the two components independently with the two different TSM procedures, their respective characteristics can be preserved to a high degree.”
From A Review of Time-Scale Modification of Music Signals (2016) · cites this paper as [8]
In the citing paper
“Established TSM methods have predominantly focused on the separation and accurate manipulation of sinusoidal and transient components of sounds [13]-[15].”
From Noise Morphing for Audio Time Stretching (2024) · cites this paper as [13]
5 more claims about this paper
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Citations
Cites
Signal estimation from modified short-time Fourier transform
Griffin, D., & Lim, J. (1984) · IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing · doi:10.1109/tassp.1984.1164317 · Cited by 2,095
Improved phase vocoder time-scale modification of audio
Laroche, J., & Dolson, M. (1999) · IEEE Transactions on Speech and Audio Processing · doi:10.1109/89.759041 · Cited by 276
Flanagan, J. L., & Golden, R. M. (1966) · Bell System Technical Journal · doi:10.1002/j.1538-7305.1966.tb01706.x · Cited by 226
Verhelst, W., & Roelands, M. (1993) · IEEE International Conference on Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing · doi:10.1109/icassp.1993.319366 · Cited by 217
A Real-Time Equalizer Of Harmonic And Percussive Components In Music Signals.
Ono, N., Miyamoto, K., Kameoka, H., & Sagayama, S. (2008) · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · doi:10.5281/zenodo.1415043 · Cited by 61
Time-scale modification of audio signals using enhanced WSOLA with management of transients
Grofit, S., & Lavner, Y. (2008) · IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing · doi:10.1109/tasl.2007.909444 · Cited by 34
(2009) · Publikationsdatenbank der Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft)
(2010) · Arrow@dit (Dublin Institute of Technology)
(2002) · Journal of the Audio Engineering Society
Research works printed but not linked: 4
- driedger, 0, Accompanying website Improving time-scale modification of music signals using harmonic-percussive separation
- 2013, �lastique time stretching & pitch shifting SDKs
- saint-arnaud, 1998, chapter Analysis and Synthesis of Sound Textures, 293
- duxbury, 2001, Separation of transient information in audio using multiresolution analysis techniques, Proc COST G-6 Conference on Digital Audio Effects (DAFX-01)
Cited by
An Ensemble of Convolutional Neural Networks for Audio Classification
Nanni, L., Maguolo, G., Brahnam, S., & Paci, M. (2021) · Applied Sciences · doi:10.3390/app11135796 · Cited by 115
A Review of Time-Scale Modification of Music Signals
Driedger, J., & Müller, M. (2016) · Applied Sciences · doi:10.3390/app6020057 · Cited by 71
Self-citationExtending Harmonic-Percussive Separation Of Audio Signals.
Driedger, J., Müller, M., & Disch, S. (2014) · doi:10.5281/zenodo.1415225 · Cited by 69
Self-citationAudiogmenter: a MATLAB toolbox for audio data augmentation
Maguolo, G., Paci, M., Nanni, L., & Bonan, L. (2021) · Applied Computing and Informatics · doi:10.1108/aci-03-2021-0064 · Cited by 39
(2014)
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Driedger, J., Muller, M., & Ewert, S.
- Affiliations
- Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (DE)
- International Audio Laboratories Erlangen, The International Audio Laboratories Erlangen are a joint institution of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and Fraunhofer Institut für Integrierte Schaltungen (IIS), Erlangen, Germany
- Queen Mary University of London (GB)
- ORCID
- Ewert, Sebastian
- Venue
- IEEE Signal Processing Letters
- Published
- 2014-01
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 105-109
- ISSN
- 1070-9908 (ISSN-L)
- 1558-2361
- OpenAlex
- W1979932443
- Cited by
- 64
- References
- 9
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 2
- FWCI
- 4.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- qmro.qmul.ac.uk
- Locations
- IEEE Signal Processing Letters (publishedVersion)
- Queen Mary Research Online (Queen Mary University of London) (submittedVersion)
- Fraunhofer-Publica (Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L019981/1, EP/J010375/1)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Signal Processing › Music and Audio Processing
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Signal Processing › Speech and Audio Processing
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Music › Music Technology and Sound Studies
- Keywords
- time-scale modification, music signals, phase vocoder, overlap-add, perceptual quality, frame size
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- Driedger, J., Muller, M., & Ewert, S. (2014). Improving Time-Scale Modification of Music Signals Using Harmonic-Percussive Separation. IEEE Signal Processing Letters. https://doi.org/10.1109/lsp.2013.2294023
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