Perception of blended timbres in music

Abstract

We examined perception of artificial timbre blending using recordings of two actual instruments. In Experiment 1, participants heard stimuli comprising different proportions of sounds from an oboe and a trumpet, constructed using both a linear and a logarithmic algorithm, and judged the degree of blending. In Experiment 2, participants chose between an oboe and a trumpet in each blend condition. In both experiments, participants were able to track the degrees of blending between the two anchor points quite accurately. In Experiment 3, participants matched test blends to two target blends in an ABX design and showed no evidence for categorical perception of oboe and trumpet timbres in their judgments. Further, participants with and without musical training showed similar patterns of responding. The findings suggest a high level of sensitivity for timbre coding in auditory perception and also have implications for timbre manipulation as a compositional device and sound morphing techniques.