Projekt Quebex: A Query by Example System for Audio Retrieval

This paper describes an audio retrieval system, Quebex that works on raw audio data. The system is able to retrieve songs that are rhythmically and timbrewise similar from a database of 700 songs. A new algorithm is proposed that attempts to match two songs temporally in terms of timbre, using a simple dynamic time warping algorithm. A sieving technique is used to eliminate unlikely candidates from further processing and a ranking system among the rhythm, spectral and temporal features is used to retrieve songs. Initial results have shown great promise for the approach as it retrieves remixes and dubbed songs within the top 10 retrievals