[PD] Seam carving audio

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Tue, 8 Jul 2008, Chris McCormick wrote:

>> Compared to the "deleting least important columns" technique that they 
>> show at 1:40, the Seam Carving technique sweeps the distorsions under 
>> the carpet. After that, don't wonder what the big lump under the carpet 
>> is.
> Yes, that is the exact point of seam carving. I'm not sure why you're
> putting a negative lumps-under-the-carpet slant on the idea.

Well, it's only negative if someone is going to be using this as if it 
were for _scaling_ the picture. If from the start it's clear that this is 
going to be an effect that is quite special, it's alright. I wouldn't like 
to have this to resize images in a web browser, for example.

>> When applying the technique to the spectrogram of a song, you should hear
>> it many times more than you'd see it.
> I take it this is speculation. I am interested to know if anyone has
> tried it and listened to the results.

No, I haven't listened to it. So I suppose that what I say doesn't count.

> Isn't part of what makes a note perceptible it's higher energy compared 
> to the surrounding space in the spectrogram?

Yes, but it all depends on how you define "energy" for the occasion. 
Throughout the video, the concept of energy is redefined (e.g.: to edit 
people out), but even their original definition is somewhat 
special-purpose, just like it usually is in image processing... I mean 
that there is no standard definition for it in image processing.

> Maybe I sould just do it.

You should do it because you will not hear about anyone that has actually 
tried it, and you want to know what it is really like, not what I think it 
will do. I still recommend that you do it on an actual score instead of 
(or in addition to) a spectrogram.

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| Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801, Montréal, Québec