Re: Robust method of fundamental frequency estimation.

[Geoffroy Peeters <Geoffroy.Peeters@xxxxxxxx>]

Dear Roisin Loughran,

We did some works on that topic recently,
the goal was to estimate the pitch note rather than the exact pitch frequency but across a wide range of instruments and octaves.
The best method was a simple combination (multiplication) of
1) an Auto-correlation of a DFT with
2) a Frequency-mapped cepstrum (cepstrum lags expressed as inverse frequencies).
You can find details about our algorithm in the last ICASSP proceedings
Peeters Music Pitch Representation by Periodicity measures based on Combined Temporal and Spectral Representations
IEEE ICASSP 2006 Toulouse (France)

Best regards
Geoffroy Peeters
Ircam - R&D
tel: +33/1/44.78.14.22
email: peeters@xxxxxxxx

Roisin Loughran a écrit :

Dear list,

I was wondering if any of you know the most robust way to calculate the fundamental frequency of a note across the range of a variety of instruments?

I'm currently working on a matlab program and have tried using the auto-correlation method and the cepstrum method but have found that these both have difficulty in calculating f0 of timbre-rich tones such as those from a piano - particularly in the lower pitch ranges. Does anyone know of a method that is more reliable in these regions or is it necessary that I investigate such complex tones by a different means? >From examining a number of the FFTs from these signals it is tempting to just pick the first strongest partial - the complex overtones just seem to confuse the more complicated algorithms, but I realise that this is hardly a reliable approach.

Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated,
Thanks in advance,

Roisin Loughran

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