Modeling onset spectral features for discrimination of drum sounds

Abstract

Motivated by practical problems related to ongoing research on Candombe drumming (a popular Afro-rooted rhythm from Uruguay), this paper proposes an approach for recognizing drum sounds in audio signals that models for sound classification the same audio spectral features employed in onset detection. Among the reported experiments involving recordings of real performances, one aims at finding the predominant Candombe drum heard in an audio file, while the other attempts to identify those temporal segments within a performance when a given sound pattern is played. The attained results are promising and suggest many ideas for future research.