Individual differences in the relative salience of percussive timbre dimensions

Abstract

A set of nine percussive timbres was generated by varying parameters of two resonant filters incorporated in a hybrid resynthesis of recorded drum sounds. Three values of damping for a lower-frequency resonance were factorially combined with three center-frequency values for a higher-frequency resonance associated with percussive attack transients. Two groups of listeners were asked to produce dissimilarity judgments for all pairwise comparisons of the nine sounds on a ten-point scale. The dissimilarity judgment data from two groups of subjects were combined to form a single dataset for submission to Individual Differences Scaling (INDSCAL) analysis. A common timbre space of just two dimensions was derived along with a subject space that revealed the different weights placed by each subject on each of those dimensions of the derived timbre space. Individual differences in the relative salience of these percussive timbre dimensions were related to the musical training of the listeners.