ANNOUNCEMENT: SHARC Timbre Database

[Greg Sandell <sandell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

                       This is an announcement for the
                             SHARC TIMBRE DATABASE

Written and maintained by Gregory J. Sandell
Sussex University, U.K.
Release 0.90("beta"), November 1994

Web users:  ftp://ftp.ep.susx.ac.uk/pub/sandell/README.html

WHAT IS SHARC?

   SHARC is a database of musical timbre information by Gregory Sandell.
   It stands for "Sandell Harmonic Archive." People for whom this dataset
   may be useful are Acousticians, Psychoacousticians, researchers in
   Music Percepion and Cognition, researchers in Digital Signal
   Processing, Music Theorists, and Musicologists.

   Over 1300 different notes have been analysed. Complete chromatic runs
   from the standard playing range of essentially all the non-percussive
   instruments of the modern orchestra have been included; for example,
   individual analyses of 32 different oboe notes (the chromatic scale
   from the pitches a#3 to f6) are available.

   For each note, a short portion corresponding to the sustain or "steady
   state" portion of the tone was selected and analysed with a Fourier
   analysis. Each analysis consists of a list of amplitudes and phases
   for all the note's harmonics in the range 0-10,000 Hz.

   The source of the musical notes were the orchestral tones from the
   McGill University Master Samples (MUMS) Compact Discs. These are
   digital recordings of live musical performers.

MORE INFORMATION ON SHARC

The SHARC Timbre Database is described in detail in the documentation
accompaning the archive.  You can get this file by:
1. Anonymous ftp to ftp.ep.susx.ac.uk; go to pub/sandell, and grab
README
2. World Wide Web, via the URL ftp://ftp.ep.susx.ac.uk/pub/sandell/README.html

Contents of the README file

     * WHAT IS SHARC?
     * RELEASE VERSION, AVAILABILITY, AUTHOR INFORMATION
     * PERMISSIONS
     * CONTENTS
     * INFORMATION ABOUT THE SOURCE SOUNDS
     * HOW IS THIS DATA USEFUL?
     * HOW THE ANALYSES WERE DONE
     * ORGANISATION OF THE DIRECTORIES
     * A BRIEF HISTORY OF THIS PROJECT
     * INFORMATION FOR WORLD WIDE WEB USERS
     * BUGS, INACCURACIES, WISHLIST

HOW TO INSTALL SHARC

   Here are instructions for installing the archive on a UNIX platform.
     * Go to the directory where you want to install SHARC. You will need
       about 9 free megabytes to perform the installation. Once
       finished, the archive will occupy 4.5 megabytes space.
     * ftp to ftp.ep.susx.ac.uk
     * Enter user name "anonymous" and give your full email address as a
       password
     * Type "binary" to set the transfer to binary mode
     * Type "get sharc.tar.Z"
     * When the file is finished transferring (it is about 0.8 megabytes
       large), leave ftp by typing "quit"
     * Type "uncompress sharc.tar.Z". The result of this is that
       sharc.tar.Z will be replaced by sharc.tar
     * Type "tar xf sharc.tar". This will put the archive in a directory
       called "sharc".
     * Dispose of the sharc.tar file (type "rm sharc.tar") to reclaim
       about 4.5 megabytes space.
--
Gregory J. Sandell  (sandell@epunix.sussex.ac.uk)
Experimental Psychology, University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QG England  +44-273-678058  (FAX:+44-273-678611)
http://ep56c.ep.susx.ac.uk/Greg.Sandell.html