Towards timbre modeling of sounds inside accelerating cars

Abstract

Quality investigations and design of interior car sounds constitute an important challenge for the car industry. Such sounds are complex and time-varying, inducing considerable timbre variations depending on the driving conditions. An interior car sound is indeed a mixture between several sound sources, with two main contributions, i.e. the engine noise on the one hand and the aerodynamic and tire-road noise on the other. Masking phenomena occur between these two components and should be considered when studying perceptive attributes of interior car sounds in order to identify relevant signal parameters. By combining sensory analysis and signal analysis associated with an auditory model, a relation between a reduced number of signal parameters and perceptive attributes can be found. This approach has enabled us to propose timbre descriptors based on the tristimulus criterion that reflect the dynamic behavior of a sound inside an accelerating car. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.