An Evaluation Framework and Case Study for Rhythmic Concatenative Synthesis

In this paper we present and report on a methodology for evaluating a creative MIR-based application of concatenative synthesis. After reviewing many existing applications of concatenative synthesis we have developed an application that specifically addresses loop-based rhythmic pattern generation. We describe how such a system could be evaluated with respect to its its objective retrieval performance and subjective responses of humans in a listener survey. Applying this evaluation strategy produced positive findings to help verify and validate the objectives of our system. We discuss the results of the evaluation and draw conclusions by contrasting the objective analysis with the subjective impressions of the users.