Drum Sample Listening Test
Thanks for your interest in participating in this listening study conducted by the University of Victoria. The focus of this study is to examine how listeners' perceive sound similarity between drum samples, specifically focussing on electronic kick and snare drum sounds. This listening test involves the comparison of kick and snare drum sounds to a reference, and ranking them based on their similarity to that reference sound. This test will take approximately ten minutes of your time. Note that the listening test is not supported on mobile phones or Mircosoft Edge.
Thank you in advance for your participation!
Jordie Shier
Please read the following informed consent information carefully before beginning the survey:
You are invited to participate in a study entitled User-Focused Music Production Interfaces for Sound Exploration and Creation that is being conducted by Jordie Shier.
Jordie Shier is a Master’s Student in the department of Computer Science at the University of Victoria and you may contact him if you have further questions by e-mail at jshier@uvic.ca or by phone at 403-669-8493.
As a graduate student, I am required to conduct research as part of the requirements for a Master’s of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies, Computer Science and Music. It is being conducted under the supervision of George Tzanetakis and Kirk McNally. You may contact George Tzanetakis by phone at 250-472-5711, or Kirk McNally by phone at 250-472-5628.
This research is being funded by a NSERC CSG-M fellowship.
Purpose and Objectives
The purpose of this project is to explore and develop novel user interfaces for the browsing and selecting of audio samples in a creative context. This work builds upon my previous research in developing new user interfaces for browsing drum sample collections. The main research question being addressed in the current study is: What is the most perceptually relevant way to organize drum samples on a user interface?
Importance of this Research
The increase in affordable music production technology has enabled a new generation of creatives to write and produce music outside of commercial recording studios. Despite this growth in availability of affordable technology, user interfaces for working with these technologies has been slow to evolve. Software such as audio synthesizers require users to have in-depth technical knowledge, and sound libraries are still navigated using cumbersome file-system based approaches. Development of new user interfaces for dealing with these challenges has the potential to not only enable existing audio practitioners to work more effectively with their tools, but may lower the barrier to entry for potential new audio creatives. This work will provide valuable information that will guide the development of new user-focused interfaces for sound creation and exploration tasks in music production environments. Results from this user study will contribute the body of related work and provide valuable insight for future work.
Participants Selection
You are being asked to participate in this study because you have experience producing music and/or have interest in learning more about music production and music production technology.
What is involved
If you consent to voluntarily participate in this research, your participation will include listening to a selection of audio drum samples and ranking them based on sound similarity. You will also be asked to fill out a brief survey to provide information regarding your demographic and experience with producing music using drum samples. The completion of the listening task and associated survey will be conducted via an online web application and will take approximately 10 minutes of your time.
Inconvenience
Participation in this study may cause some inconvenience to you, including the time that it takes to complete the task and fill out the survey.
Risks
There are no known or anticipated risks to you by participating in this research.
Benefits
The potential benefits of your participation in this research include providing valuable feedback that has the potential to shape the development of future music production technology. Hopefully you find it interesting to use your critical listening skills to rank drum samples based on sound similarity.
Voluntary Participation
Your participation in this research must be completely voluntary. If you do decide to participate, you may withdraw at any time without any consequences or any explanation. If you do withdraw from the study, we will ask you if you consent to us keeping your partial data for analysis. If you do not consent to researchers using your partial data, we will destroy it immediately.
On-going Consent
To make sure that you continue to consent to participate in this research, you will be asked a question during the survey regarding the future use of data.
Anonymity
Your identity will be anonymous in all data collected from this study. Your name will not be associated with any survey questions. In the case that you provide some identifying information in a survey question response or comment, that information will be modified to remove any identifying information.
Confidentiality
Your confidentiality and the confidentiality of the data will be protected by the use of participant IDs in association with data collected from this study. All data will be encrypted and stored on a password protected server located on campus at the University of Victoria during data acquisition, then on a hard drive kept at in a locked research lab at the University of Victoria.
Dissemination of Results
It is anticipated that the results of this study will be shared with others in the following ways: Master’s Thesis, Presentations and Published articles including, the Audio Engineering Society Conference or Journal, Computer Music Journal, and Workshop in Intelligent Music Production.
Disposal of Data
Data from this study will not be disposed of. All data will be encrypted and stored on a password protected hard drive in a locked research lab at University of Victoria. This data will be kept to allow for potential comparative studies in future research projects.
Contacts
Individuals that may be contacted regarding this study include:
Principal Investigator: Jordie Shier, (403) 669 8493, jshier@uvic.ca
Research Supervisor: George Tzanetakis, gtzan@cs.uvic.ca
Research Supervisor: Kirk McNally, kmcnally@uvic.ca
In addition, you may verify the ethical approval of this study, or raise any concerns you might have, by contacting the Human Research Ethics Office at the University of Victoria (250-472-4545 or ethics@uvic.ca).
Clicking the button below indicates that you understand the above conditions of participation in this study, that you have had the opportunity to have your questions answered by the researchers, and that you consent to participate in this research project.