Perceptually-motivated audio morphing: warmth

A system for morphing the warmth of a sound independently from its other timbral attributes was coded, building on previous work morphing brightness only (1), and morphing brightness and softness (2). The new warmth-softnessbrightness morpher was perceptually validated using a series of listening tests. A Multidimensional Scaling analysis of listener responses to paired-comparisons showed perceptually orthogonal movement in two dimensions within a warmth-morphed and everything-else-morphed stimulus set. A verbal elicitation experiment showed that listeners‟ descriptive labeling of these dimensions was as intended. A further „quality control‟ experiment provided evidence that no „hidden‟ timbral attributes were altered in parallel with the intended ones. A complete timbre morpher can now be considered for further work, and evaluated using the tri-stage procedure documented here.