Automated Time-frequency Domain Audio Crossfades using Graph Cuts

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel automated method for seamless audio crossfades in the time-frequency domain, utilizing graph cut optimization to improve transition quality in personal music playback.

Contribution

It proposes a new approach that discretizes the frequency spectrum and applies graph flow optimization for automatic audio transitions, a first in this context.

Findings

First automatic time-frequency domain crossfade method

Uses graph cut optimization for smooth transitions

Potentially improves user experience in music playback

Abstract

The problem of transitioning smoothly from one audio clip to another arises in many music consumption scenarios, especially as music consumption has moved from professionally curated and live-streamed radios to personal playback devices and services. we present the first steps toward a new method of automatically transitioning from one audio clip to another by discretizing the frequency spectrum into bins and then finding transition times for each bin. We phrase the problem as one of graph flow optimization; specifically min-cut/max-flow.