Octave Error Immune and Instantaneous Pitch Detection Algorithm

The aim of this article is to present an octave error optimized pitch detection algorithm based on spectral analysis. The proposed algorithm is effective for signals with strong harmonic content, as well as for nearly sinusoidal ones. In addition, as an extension to the presented octave error optimized algorithm, a method of estimating instantaneous pitch is described. Experiments and estimation accuracy tests in terms of octave errors were performed on a variety of musical instruments (i.e., 567 sounds played on acoustic instruments with various articulations and dynamics, with fundamental frequencies ranging from 34 Hz up to 1700 Hz, were processed). Fine pitch error tests of the instantaneous pitch estimation algorithm were performed for 4,000 different synthetic signals, with frequencies ranging from 50 Hz to 4000 Hz, including both clean signals and signals contaminated with noise. Results exemplifying the main issues of both engineered algorithms are shown. In addition, a performance comparison between the engineered algorithm and algorithms from the Wavesurfer software is presented.