Compute acoustic roughness without calibration

Hello,

I'm trying to use the MATLAB function 'acousticRoughness' to compute the roughness of a set of audio files. Unfortunately I don't have any information about the calibration factor of the microphone used for the recording of those files.

There is a way to compute the roughness without using it, or by using an another existing function?

Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

[dpb]

acousticRoughness documenation shows the first use case without an external calibration factor so you can run the calculation.

Everything then will be relative to the assumptions made there; if the files were all recorded with the same microphone setup, then you will have results that are consistent relative to each other; you just won't know how to compare against some other set of data.

If the data files are from different sources or the setup can't be assumed to be the same, then you will be unable to say anything about the results relative to each other, only that a given file produced a specific result given the assumptions used.

[Richard]

Ok, thanks for your answer. In fact I have a set of sounds generated from one and unique audio file (I'm just applying a recorded sound a digital audio effect on it, and then I compare different presets of this effect) I'm still doubting about this, but thanks.

Answer 2

[Jimmy Lapierre]

Roughness will be slightly under- or over-estimated if the calibration level is off. However, that's not an issue if you care mostly about relative roughness (comparing different files that would be played back the same, without changing the volume control between files).