Towards Speeding Audio EQ Interface Building with Transfer Learning

Potential users of audio production software, such as parametric audio equalizers, may be discouraged by the complexity of the interface. A new approach creates a personalized on-screen slider that lets the user manipulate the audio in terms of a descriptive term (e.g. "warm"), without the user needing to learn or use the interface of an equalizer. This system learns mappings by presenting a sequence of sounds to the user and correlating the gain in each frequency band with the user's preference rating. The system speeds learning through transfer learning. Results on a study of 35 participants show how an effective, personalized audio manipulation tool can be automatically built after only three ratings from the user.