SOUND ANALYSIS APPARATUS AND PROGRAM

• US 20080202321A1
• Filed: 02/25/2008
• Published: 08/28/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Government of Japan), Yamaha Corporation
• Original Assignee: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Government of Japan), Yamaha Corporation
• Inventors: Arimoto, Keita, Fujishima, Takuya, Goto, Masataka
• Granted Patent: US 7,858,869 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 84/616
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 1/361 Recording/reproducing of accompaniment for use with an external source, e.g. karaoke systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2210/066 for pitch analysis as part of wider processing for musical purposes, e.g. transcription, musical performance evaluation; Pitch recognition, e.g. in polyphonic sounds; Estimation or use of missing fundamental

Abstract

A sound analysis apparatus employs tone models which are associated with various fundamental frequencies and each of which simulates a harmonic structure of a performance sound generated by a musical instrument, then defines a weighted mixture of the tone models to simulate frequency components of the performance sound, further sequentially updates and optimizes weight values of the respective tone models so that a frequency distribution of the weighted mixture of the tone models corresponds to a distribution of the frequency components of the performance sound, and estimates the fundamental frequency of the performance sound based on the optimized weight values.

Claims

1. A sound analysis apparatus comprising:

a performance sound acquisition part that externally acquires a performance sound of a musical instrument;

a target fundamental frequency acquisition part that acquires a target fundamental frequency to which a fundamental frequency of the performance sound acquired by the performance sound acquisition part should correspond;

a fundamental frequency estimation part that employs tone models which are associated with various fundamental frequencies and each of which simulates a harmonic structure of a performance sound generated by a musical instrument, then defines a weighted mixture of the tone models to simulate frequency components of the performance sound, then sequentially updates and optimizes weight values of the respective tone models so that a frequency distribution of the weighted mixture of the tone models corresponds to a distribution of the frequency components of the performance sound acquired by the performance sound acquisition part, and estimates the fundamental frequency of the performance sound acquired by the performance sound acquisition part based on the optimized weight values; and

a decision part that makes a decision on a fundamental frequency of the performance sound, which is acquired by the performance sound acquisition part, on the basis of the target fundamental frequency acquired by the target fundamental frequency acquisition part and the estimated fundamental frequency of the performance sound.

2. The sound analysis apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fundamental frequency estimation part applies a preliminary distribution of the weight values to the mixture of the tone models when the fundamental frequency estimation part optimizes the weight values of the respective tone models associated with the various fundamental frequencies, the preliminary distribution containing a weight value which relates to the target fundamental frequency acquired by the target fundamental frequency acquisition part and which is emphasized as compared to other weight values.

3. The sound analysis apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fundamental frequency estimation part changes a ratio of magnitudes of harmonic components contained in the harmonic structure of each tone model during the course of sequentially updating and optimizing the weight value of each tone model.

4. A machine readable medium for use in a computer, the medium containing program instructions being executable by the computer to perform a sound analysis process comprising the steps of:

externally acquiring a performance sound of a musical instrument;

acquiring a target fundamental frequency to which a fundamental frequency of the performance sound should correspond;

employing tone models which are associated with various fundamental frequencies and each of which simulates a harmonic structure of a performance sound generated by a musical instrument;

defining a weighted mixture of the tone models to simulate frequency components of the performance sound;

sequentially updating and optimizing weight values of the respective tone models so that a frequency distribution of the weighted mixture of the tone models corresponds to a distribution of the frequency components of the performance sound;

estimating the fundamental frequency of the performance sound based on the optimized weight values; and

evaluating the estimated fundamental frequency of the performance sound on the basis of the target fundamental frequency.