pitch

Estimate fundamental frequency of audio signal

Syntax

f0 = pitch(audioIn,fs)

f0 = pitch(audioIn,fs,Name=Value)

[f0,loc] = pitch(___)

pitch(___)

Description

f0 = pitch(audioIn,fs) returns estimates of the fundamental frequency over time for the audio input, audioIn, with sample rate fs. Columns of the input are treated as individual channels.

f0 = pitch(audioIn,fs,Name=Value) specifies options using one or more name-value arguments.

[f0,loc] = pitch(___) returns the locations, loc, associated with fundamental frequency estimates. You can specify an input combination from any of the previous syntaxes.

pitch(___) with no output arguments plots the estimated pitch against time.

Examples

Estimate Pitch

Read in an audio signal. Call pitch to estimate the fundamental frequency over time.

[audioIn,fs] = audioread("Hey-16-mono-6secs.ogg");

f0 = pitch(audioIn,fs);

Listen to the audio signal and plot the signal and pitch. The pitch function estimates the fundamental frequency over time, but the estimate is only valid for regions that are harmonic.

sound(audioIn,fs)

tiledlayout(2,1)

nexttile
t = (0:length(audioIn)-1)/fs;
plot(t,audioIn)
xlabel("Time (s)")
ylabel("Amplitude")
grid minor
axis tight

nexttile
pitch(audioIn,fs)

Estimate Pitch For Singing Voice

Read in an audio signal and extract the pitch.

[x,fs] = audioread("SingingAMajor-16-mono-18secs.ogg");
t = (0:size(x,1)-1)/fs;

winLength = round(0.05*fs);
overlapLength = round(0.045*fs);
[f0,idx] = pitch(x,fs,Method="SRH",WindowLength=winLength,OverlapLength=overlapLength);
tf0 = idx/fs;

Listen to the audio and plot the audio and pitch estimations.

sound(x,fs)

figure
tiledlayout(2,1)

nexttile
plot(t,x)
ylabel("Amplitude")
title("Audio Signal")
axis tight

nexttile
pitch(x,fs,Method="SRH",WindowLength=winLength,OverlapLength=overlapLength)
title("Pitch Estimations")

The pitch function estimates the pitch for overlapped analysis windows. The pitch estimates are only valid if the analysis window has a harmonic component. Call the harmonicRatio function using the same window and overlap length used for pitch detection. Plot the audio, pitch, and harmonic ratio.

hr = harmonicRatio(x,fs,Window=hamming(winLength,"periodic"),OverlapLength=overlapLength);

figure
tiledlayout(3,1)

nexttile
plot(t,x)
ylabel("Amplitude")
title("Audio Signal")
axis tight

nexttile
pitch(x,fs,Method="SRH",WindowLength=winLength,OverlapLength=overlapLength)
title("Pitch Estimations")
xlabel("")

nexttile
harmonicRatio(x,fs,Window=hamming(winLength,"periodic"),OverlapLength=overlapLength)
title("Harmonic Ratio")

Use the harmonic ratio as the threshold for valid pitch decisions. If the harmonic ratio is less than the threshold, set the pitch decision to NaN. Plot the results.

threshold = 0.9;
f0(hr < threshold) = nan;

figure
plot(tf0,f0)
xlabel("Time (s)")
ylabel("Pitch (Hz)")
title("Pitch Estimations")
grid on

Compare Pitch of Two Voices

Read in an audio signal of a female voice saying "volume up" five times. Listen to the audio.

[femaleVoice,fs] = audioread("FemaleVolumeUp-16-mono-11secs.ogg");
sound(femaleVoice,fs)

Read in an audio signal of a male voice saying "volume up" five times. Listen to the audio.

maleVoice = audioread("MaleVolumeUp-16-mono-6secs.ogg");
sound(maleVoice,fs)

Extract the pitch from both the female and male recordings. Plot histograms of the pitch estimations for the male and female audio recordings. The histograms have a similar shape. This is because the pitch decisions contain results for unvoiced speech and regions of silence.

f0Female = pitch(femaleVoice,fs);
f0Male = pitch(maleVoice,fs);

figure
numBins = 20;
histogram(f0Female,numBins,Normalization="probability");
hold on
histogram(f0Male,numBins,Normalization="probability");
legend("Female Voice","Male Voice")
xlabel("Pitch (Hz)")
ylabel("Probability")
hold off

Use the detectSpeech function to isolate regions of speech in the audio signal and then extract pitch from only those speech regions.

speechIndices = detectSpeech(femaleVoice,fs);
f0Female = [];
for ii = 1:size(speechIndices,1)
    speechSegment = femaleVoice(speechIndices(ii,1):speechIndices(ii,2));
    f0Female = [f0Female;pitch(speechSegment,fs)];
end

speechIndices = detectSpeech(maleVoice,fs);
f0Male = [];
for ii = 1:size(speechIndices,1)
    speechSegment = maleVoice(speechIndices(ii,1):speechIndices(ii,2));
    f0Male = [f0Male;pitch(speechSegment,fs)];
end

Plot histograms of the pitch estimations for the male and female audio recordings. The pitch distributions now appear as expected.

figure
histogram(f0Female,numBins,Normalization="probability");
hold on
histogram(f0Male,numBins,Normalization="probability");
legend("Female Voice","Male Voice")
xlabel("Pitch (Hz)")
ylabel("Probability")

Estimate Pitch of Musical Signal Using Nondefault Parameters

Load an audio file of the Für Elise introduction and the sample rate of the audio.

load FurElise.mat song fs
sound(song,fs)

Call the pitch function using the pitch estimate filter (PEF), a search range of 50 to 800 Hz, a window duration of 80 ms, an overlap duration of 70 ms, and a median filter length of 10.

method = "PEF";
range = [50, 800]; % hertz
winDur = 0.08; % seconds
overlapDur = 0.07; % seconds
medFiltLength = 10; % frames

winLength = round(winDur*fs);
overlapLength = round(overlapDur*fs);
[f0,loc] = pitch(song,fs, ...
    Method=method, ...
    Range=range, ...
    WindowLength=winLength, ...
    OverlapLength=overlapLength, ...
    MedianFilterLength=medFiltLength);

Plot the estimated pitch against time.

pitch(song,fs, ...
    Method=method, ...
    Range=range, ...
    WindowLength=winLength, ...
    OverlapLength=overlapLength, ...
    MedianFilterLength=medFiltLength);

Determine Pitch Contour of Streaming Audio

Create a dsp.AudioFileReader object to read in audio frame-by-frame.

fileReader = dsp.AudioFileReader("SingingAMajor-16-mono-18secs.ogg");

Create a voiceActivityDetector object to detect the presence of voice in streaming audio.

VAD = voiceActivityDetector;

While there are unread samples, read from the file and determine the probability that the frame contains voice activity. If the frame contains voice activity, call pitch to estimate the fundamental frequency of the audio frame. If the frame does not contain voice activity, declare the fundamental frequency as NaN.

f0 = [];
while ~isDone(fileReader)
    x = fileReader();
    
    if VAD(x) > 0.99
        decision = pitch(x,fileReader.SampleRate, ...
            WindowLength=size(x,1), ...
            OverlapLength=0, ...
            Range=[200,340]);
    else
        decision = NaN;
    end
    f0 = [f0;decision];
end

Plot the detected pitch contour over time.

t = linspace(0,(length(f0)*fileReader.SamplesPerFrame)/fileReader.SampleRate,length(f0));
plot(t,f0)
ylabel("Fundamental Frequency (Hz)")
xlabel("Time (s)")
grid on

Compare Pitch Detection Algorithms

The different methods of estimating pitch provide trade-offs in terms of noise robustness, accuracy, optimal lag, and computation expense. In this example, you compare the performance of different pitch detection algorithms in terms of gross pitch error (GPE) and computation time under different noise conditions.

Prepare Test Signals

Load an audio file and determine the number of samples it has. Also load the true pitch corresponding to the audio file. The true pitch was determined as an average of several third-party algorithms on the clean speech file.

[audioIn,fs] = audioread('Counting-16-44p1-mono-15secs.wav');
numSamples = size(audioIn,1);
load TruePitch.mat truePitch

Create test signals by adding noise to the audio signal at given SNRs. The mixSNR function is a convenience function local to this example, which takes a signal, noise, and requested SNR and returns a noisy signal at the request SNR.

testSignals = zeros(numSamples,4);

turbine = audioread('Turbine-16-44p1-mono-22secs.wav');
testSignals(:,1) = mixSNR(audioIn,turbine,20);
testSignals(:,2) = mixSNR(audioIn,turbine,0);

whiteNoiseMaker = dsp.ColoredNoise('Color','white','SamplesPerFrame',size(audioIn,1));
testSignals(:,3) = mixSNR(audioIn,whiteNoiseMaker(),20);
testSignals(:,4) = mixSNR(audioIn,whiteNoiseMaker(),0);

Save the noise conditions and algorithm names as cell arrays for labeling and indexing.

noiseConditions = {'Turbine (20 dB)','Turbine (0 dB)','WhiteNoise (20 dB)','WhiteNoise (0 dB)'};
algorithms = {'NCF','PEF','CEP','LHS','SRH'};

Run Pitch Detection Algorithms

Preallocate arrays to hold pitch decisions for each algorithm and noise condition pair, and the timing information. In a loop, call the pitch function on each combination of algorithm and noise condition. Each algorithm has an optimal window length associated with it. In this example, for simplicity, you use the default window length for all algorithms. Use a 3-element median filter to smooth the pitch decisions.

f0 = zeros(numel(truePitch),numel(algorithms),numel(noiseConditions));
algorithmTimer = zeros(numel(noiseConditions),numel(algorithms));

for k = 1:numel(noiseConditions)
    x = testSignals(:,k);
    for i = 1:numel(algorithms)
        tic
        f0temp = pitch(x,fs, ...
            'Range',[50 300], ...
            'Method',algorithms{i}, ...
            'MedianFilterLength',3);
        algorithmTimer(k,i) = toc;
        f0(1:max(numel(f0temp),numel(truePitch)),i,k) = f0temp;
    end
end

Compare Gross Pitch Error

Gross pitch error (GPE) is a popular metric when comparing pitch detection algorithms. GPE is defined as the proportion of pitch decisions for which the relative error is higher than a given threshold, traditionally 20% in speech studies. Calculate the GPE and print it to the Command Window.

idxToCompare = ~isnan(truePitch);
truePitch = truePitch(idxToCompare);
f0 = f0(idxToCompare,:,:);

p = 0.20;
GPE = mean( abs(f0(1:numel(truePitch),:,:) - truePitch) > truePitch.*p).*100;

for ik = 1:numel(noiseConditions)
    fprintf('\nGPE (p = %0.2f), Noise = %s.\n',p,noiseConditions{ik});
    for i = 1:size(GPE,2)
        fprintf('- %s : %0.1f %%\n',algorithms{i},GPE(1,i,ik))
    end
end

GPE (p = 0.20), Noise = Turbine (20 dB).

- NCF : 0.9 %
- PEF : 0.4 %
- CEP : 8.2 %
- LHS : 8.2 %
- SRH : 6.0 %

GPE (p = 0.20), Noise = Turbine (0 dB).

- NCF : 5.6 %
- PEF : 24.5 %
- CEP : 11.6 %
- LHS : 9.4 %
- SRH : 46.8 %

GPE (p = 0.20), Noise = WhiteNoise (20 dB).

- NCF : 0.9 %
- PEF : 0.0 %
- CEP : 12.9 %
- LHS : 6.9 %
- SRH : 2.6 %

GPE (p = 0.20), Noise = WhiteNoise (0 dB).

- NCF : 0.4 %
- PEF : 0.0 %
- CEP : 23.6 %
- LHS : 7.3 %
- SRH : 1.7 %

Calculate the average time it takes to process one second of data for each of the algorithms and print the results.

aT = sum(algorithmTimer)./((numSamples/fs)*numel(noiseConditions));
for ik = 1:numel(algorithms)
    fprintf('- %s : %0.3f (s)\n',algorithms{ik},aT(ik))
end

- NCF : 0.040 (s)
- PEF : 0.131 (s)
- CEP : 0.041 (s)
- LHS : 0.069 (s)
- SRH : 0.122 (s)

Input Arguments

audioIn — Audio input signal

vector | matrix

Audio input signal, specified as a vector or matrix. The columns of the matrix are treated as individual audio channels.

Data Types: single | double

fs — Sample rate (Hz)

positive scalar

Sample rate of the input signal in Hz, specified as a positive scalar.

The sample rate must be greater than or equal to twice the upper bound of the search range. Specify the search range using the Range name-value pair.

Data Types: single | double

Name-Value Arguments

Specify optional pairs of arguments as Name1=Value1,...,NameN=ValueN, where Name is the argument name and Value is the corresponding value. Name-value arguments must appear after other arguments, but the order of the pairs does not matter.

Before R2021a, use commas to separate each name and value, and enclose Name in quotes.

Example: pitch(audioIn,fs,Range=[50,150],Method="PEF")

Range — Search range for pitch estimates

[50,400] (default) | two-element row vector with increasing positive integer values

Search range for pitch estimates, specified as a two-element row vector with increasing positive integer values. The function searches for a best estimate of the fundamental frequency within the upper and lower band edges specified by the vector, according to the algorithm specified by Method. The range is inclusive and units are in Hz.

Valid values for the search range depend on the sample rate, fs, and on the values of WindowLength and Method:

Method	Minimum Range	Maximum Range
"NCF"	fs/WindowLength < Range(1)	Range(2) < fs/2
"PEF"	10 < Range(1)	Range(2) < min(4000,fs/2)
"CEP"	fs/(2^nextpow2(2*WindowLength-1)) < Range(1)	Range(2) < fs/2
"LHS"	1 < Range(1)	Range(2) < fs/5 - 1
"SRH"	1 < Range(1)	Range(2) < fs/5 - 1

Data Types: single | double

WindowLength — Number of samples in analysis window

round(fs*0.052) (default) | integer

Number of samples in the analysis window, specified as an integer in the range [1, min(size(audioIn,1), 192000)]. Typical analysis windows are in the range 20–100 ms. The default window length is 52 ms.

Data Types: single | double

OverlapLength — Number of samples of overlap between adjacent analysis windows

round(fs*0.042) (default) | integer

Number of samples of overlap between adjacent analysis windows, specified as an integer in the range (-inf,WindowLength). A negative overlap length indicates non-overlapping analysis windows.

Data Types: single | double

Method — Method used to estimate pitch

"NCF" (default) | "PEF" | "CEP" | "LHS" | "SRH"

Method used to estimate pitch, specified as "NCF", "PEF","CEP", "LHS", or "SRH". The different methods of calculating pitch provide trade-offs in terms of noise robustness, accuracy, and computation expense. The algorithms used to calculate pitch are based on the following papers:

• "NCF" –– Normalized Correlation Function [1]

• "PEF" –– Pitch Estimation Filter [2]. The function does not use the amplitude compression described by the paper.

• "CEP" –– Cepstrum Pitch Determination [3]

• "LHS" –– Log-Harmonic Summation [4]

• "SRH" –– Summation of Residual Harmonics [5]

Data Types: char | string

MedianFilterLength — Median filter length used to smooth pitch estimates over time

1 (default) | positive integer

Median filter length used to smooth pitch estimates over time, specified as a positive integer. The default, 1, corresponds to no median filtering. Median filtering is a postprocessing technique used to remove outliers while estimating pitch. The function uses movmedian after estimating the pitch using the specified Method.

Data Types: single | double

Output Arguments

f0 — Estimated fundamental frequency (Hz)

scalar | vector | matrix

Estimated fundamental frequency, in Hz, returned as a scalar, vector, or matrix. The number of rows returned depends on the values of the WindowLength and OverlapLength name-value pairs, and on the input signal size. The number of columns (channels) returned depends on the number of columns of the input signal size.

Data Types: single | double

loc — Locations associated with fundamental frequency estimations

scalar | vector | matrix

Locations associated with fundamental frequency estimations, returned as a scalar, vector, or matrix the same size as f0.

Fundamental frequency is estimated locally over a region of WindowLength samples. The values of loc correspond to the most recent sample (largest sample number) used to estimate fundamental frequency.

Data Types: single | double

Algorithms

The pitch function segments the audio input according to the WindowLength and OverlapLength arguments. The fundamental frequency is estimated for each frame. The locations output, loc contains the most recent samples (largest sample numbers) of the corresponding frame.

For a description of the algorithms used to estimate the fundamental frequency, consult the corresponding references:

• "NCF" –– Normalized Correlation Function [1]

• "PEF" –– Pitch Estimation Filter [2]. The function does not use the amplitude compression described by the paper.

• "CEP" –– Cepstrum Pitch Determination [3]

• "LHS" –– Log-Harmonic Summation [4]

• "SRH" –– Summation of Residual Harmonics [5]

References

[1] Atal, B.S. "Automatic Speaker Recognition Based on Pitch Contours." The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Vol. 52, No. 6B, 1972, pp. 1687–1697.

[2] Gonzalez, Sira, and Mike Brookes. "A Pitch Estimation Filter robust to high levels of noise (PEFAC)." 19th European Signal Processing Conference. Barcelona, 2011, pp. 451–455.

[3] Noll, Michael A. "Cepstrum Pitch Determination." The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Vol. 31, No. 2, 1967, pp. 293–309.

[4] Hermes, Dik J. "Measurement of Pitch by Subharmonic Summation." The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Vol. 83, No. 1, 1988, pp. 257–264.

[5] Drugman, Thomas, and Abeer Alwan. "Joint Robust Voicing Detection and Pitch Estimation Based on Residual Harmonics." Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH. 2011, pp. 1973–1976.

Extended Capabilities

C/C++ Code Generation
Generate C and C++ code using MATLAB® Coder™.

GPU Arrays

Accelerate code by running on a graphics processing unit (GPU) using Parallel Computing Toolbox™.

This function fully supports GPU arrays. For more information, see Run MATLAB Functions on a GPU (Parallel Computing Toolbox).

Version History

Introduced in R2018a