Elicitation and Objective Grading of ‘Punch’ Within Produced Music

This paper details the results from an investigation into the objective grading of punch within a complex musical signal. The term punch is a subjective term, which is often used to characterize music or sound sources that exhibit a sense of dynamic power or weight to the listener. In a novel reverse elicitation process, experts were asked to create audio samples which they perceived as having punch using a multi-band wave shaping process. Expert listeners then graded the generated punchy audio samples in a controlled listening test. Statistical analysis identified correlations between Mean Subject Scores and the parameters that created the punchy audio samples suggesting that an algorithm could be developed to objectively evaluate punch in produced music.