Dust-to-Digital: A Case Study

This case study examines Dust-to-Digital, a music reissue label based in Atlanta, Georgia. The reissue label specializes in the digitization of records produced between 1860-1980. I also discuss Music Memory, the non-profit organization run by Dust-to-Digital, aiming to create an open-access music database for students and researchers. This analysis examines the ethical and legal implications of the reissue records created by Dust-to-Digital and Music Memory, and provides solutions for some of the issues and alternatives for consideration.

De notación hispánica a notación aquitana: escribir música en la Iberia medieval

Este artículo se centra en las peculiaridades de las principales muestras de notación musical hispana y aquitana conservadas en los manuscritos litúrgicos peninsulares de los siglos X a mediados del XVI, proponiendo reconsiderar el estado de la cuestión desde el campo de la paleografía musical peninsular. Específicamente, esta aproximación paleográfica se orienta alrededor de los dos cambios principales que marcaron la escritura de música en la Península en el período bajo consideración: la substitución de la notación hispánica tradicional por la notación aquitana a finales del siglo XI, y el cambio gráfico que muestra la notación aquitana por influencia de la escritura gótica. La forma en la que ambos cambios se desarrollaron fue considerablemente desigual; precipitada y rápida en el primer caso, lenta y gradual en el segundo. En esta visión de conjunto, se presentan como ejemplos ilustrativos de notación aquitana fuentes que habían pasado desapercibidas hasta hace poco y que están ahora disponibles para su consulta en la “Portuguese Early Music Database”.

Progressive Filtering Approach for Query by Humming System Through Empirical Mode Decomposition and Multiresolution Histograms

This research work proposes an implementation of adept content-based music retrieval technique that attempts to address the demands of the rising availability of digital music. The primary objective of this research work is to balance the perilous impact of non-relevant songs through progressive filtering (PF) for query by humming (QBH) music information retrieval system. The PF is a technique of searching in manifolds for problem solving through reduced search space. A new strategy for empirical mode decomposition (EMD) analysis is adopted, and outcomes are propelled as a significant source of information for multiresolution histogram (MRH) representations. Finally, the concept of PF is realized through MRH to retrieve the desired song by humming. The proposed multiresolution QBH system is evaluated on a music database of 1200 fragments, and the experimental results effectively locate the humming patterns and recite the eminence of EMD analysis for retrieving the desired song through humming.

Detection of Montage in Lossy Compressed Digital Audio Recordings

This paper addresses the problem of tampering detection and discusses methods used for authenticity analysis of digital audio recordings. Presented approach is based on frame offset measurement in audio files compressed and decoded by using perceptual audio coding algorithms which employ modified discrete cosine transform. The minimum values of total number of active MDCT coefficients occur for frame shifts equal to multiplications of applied window length. Any modification of audio file, including cutting off or pasting a part of audio recording causes a disturbance within this regularity. In this study the algorithm based on checking frame offset previously described in the literature is expanded by using each of four types of analysis windows commonly applied in the majority of MDCT based encoders. To enhance the robustness of the method additional histogram analysis is performed by detecting the presence of small value spectral components. Moreover, computation of maximum values of nonzero spectral coefficients is employed, which creates a gating function for the results obtained based on previous algorithm. This solution radically minimizes a number of false detections of forgeries. The influence of compression algorithms' parameters on detection of forgeries is presented by applying AAC and Ogg Vorbis encoders as examples. The effectiveness of tampering detection algorithms proposed in this paper is tested on a predefined music database and compared graphically using ROC-like curves.