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Evaluating Perception of Salient Frequencies: Do Mixing Engineers Hear the Same Thing?

In this contribution, we analyze the agreement of mixing engineers when finding salient frequencies in recorded audio tracks. Twenty-two mixing engineers were asked to use an equalizer with a high Q and high gain setting. Using this tool to sweep through the files' frequencies, they analyzed sixteen audio tracks and reported the most perceptually salient frequencies. The results show that the agreement depends on the analysis bandwidth. Most mixing engineers agree within a wide frequency range. However, only a few engineers agree if the matching bandwidth is below or equal to one-third octave. In this paper, we try to explain these results and give a detailed analysis.

Authors: Bitzer, Joerg; LeBoeuf, Jay; Simmer, Uwe
Affiliations: University of Applied Science Oldenburg;DigiDesign(See document for exact affiliation information.)
AES Convention:124 (May 2008) Paper Number:7462 Import into BibTeX
Subject:Psychoacoustics, Perception, and Listening Tests

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