Objective quality measurement of audio using multiband dynamic range analysis

Ever since the very first recordings were made, people have strived to improve the recording and playback process to a point of ‘complete transparency’. However, in music production, it’s certainly the case that sound-engineers and producers employ techniques to deliberately ‘colour’ or ‘enhance’ the completed piece to achieve ‘release quality’ material. The measure of ‘release quality’ is open to both subjective discussion and measurement, but its objective measurement remains somewhat of a ‘holy grail’ within the music industry. Attempts to maximize the loudness of a piece of music and the proliferation of a new default listening standard, mp3, are examples where a reliable metric that quantifies sound quality, or loss of it, is required. This paper describes an approach where the objective measurement of quality of audio based upon a novel multiband analysis technique is investigated. We demonstrate the relationship between the subjective quality assessment of the ‘produced’ audio and it’s correlation with measured dynamic range descriptors.