Timbre
Related papers: 20
About
Timbre refers to the distinctive tonal quality or "color" of a sound that distinguishes it from other sounds of the same pitch and loudness — it is what makes a violin sound different from a flute even when playing the same note. Physically, timbre arises from a sound's harmonic content, spectral envelope, and temporal characteristics such as attack and decay. In robotics and AI, timbre is leveraged across multiple domains: musical robots use controlled timbre variation to produce expressive, emotionally nuanced performances on instruments like violin or percussion; social robots employ synthesized timbral qualities in non-verbal sounds to convey intention and emotional state; and auditory perception systems analyze timbral features for speech emotion recognition and robotic hearing. Timbre also informs sonification strategies, where robot motion or swarm behavior is mapped to sound for improved human awareness and interaction quality. Its significance lies in enabling richer, more natural human-robot communication — moving beyond simple beeps toward acoustically expressive systems capable of conveying subtle meaning through sound design, much as humans do in music and speech.
Top Researchers
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Top Cited Papers
Sound design for emotion and intention expression of socially interactive robots
Eun-Sook Jee, Yong-Jeon Jeong, Chong Hui Kim, Hisato Kobayashi
Citations: 46 • 2010
Organic Optoelectronic Synapses for Sound Perception
Yanan Wei, Youxing Liu, Qijie Lin, Tianhua Liu, Song Wang, Hao Chen, Congqi Li, Xiaobin Gu, Xin Zhang, Hui Huang
Citations: 43 • 2023
The interactive robotic percussionist
Gil Weinberg, Scott Driscoll
Citations: 36 • 2007
Personalized Synthesis of Intentional and Emotional Non-Verbal Sounds for Social Robots
Hannes Ritschel, Ilhan Aslan, Silvan Mertes, Andreas Seiderer, Elisabeth André
Citations: 34 • 2019
Robot Gesture Sonification to Enhance Awareness of Robot Status and Enjoyment of Interaction
Lisa Zahray, Richard Savery, Liana Syrkett, Gil Weinberg
Citations: 23 • 2020
Development of anthropomorphic musical performance robots: From understanding the nature of music performance to its application to entertainment robotics
Jorge Solis, Klaus Petersen, Takeshi Ninomiya, Masaki Takeuchi, Atsuo Takanishi
Citations: 19 • 2009
VocaListener and VocaWatcher: Imitating a human singer by using signal processing
Masataka Goto, Tomoyasu Nakano, Shuuji Kajita, Yosuke Matsusaka, Shin’ichiro Nakaoka, Kazuhito Yokoi
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Emotion Musical Prosody for Robotic Groups and Entitativity
Richard Savery, Amit Rogel, Gil Weinberg
Citations: 11 • 2021
Auto-Tune, Labor, and the Pop-Music Voice
Catherine Provenzano
Citations: 10 • 2018
Violin Playing Robot and Kansei
Koji SHIBUYA
Citations: 8 • 2011
Anthropomorphic Musical Performance Robots at Waseda University: Increasing Understanding of the Nature of Human Musical Interaction
Jorge Solis, Takeshi Ninomiya, Klaus Petersen, Maasaki Takeuchi, Atsuo Takanishi
Citations: 8 • 2009
The planning of violin playing robot with KANSEI information-algorithm to decide bowing parameters from timbre
Koji SHIBUYA, Y. Chikaoka, Tomoyuki Koyama, Shigeki Sugano
Citations: 6 • 2002
Design Principles of Loudness to Express Bright and Dark Timbres for Violin-playing Robot
Koji SHIBUYA, Hiroyuki Ishimoto
Citations: 6 • 2018
Bright and Dark Timbre Expressions with Sound Pressure and Tempo Variations by Violin-playing Robot
Koji SHIBUYA, Kento Kosuga, Hiroshi Fukuhara
Citations: 5 • 2020
Improved speech emotion recognition based on music-related audio features
Linh Vu, Raphaël C.‐W. Phan, Dinh Phung
Citations: 5 • 2022
Guest editorial: Music perception and cognition in music technology
Zijin Li, Stephen McAdams
Citations: 2 • 2022
The Sound of Swarm. Auditory Description of Swarm Robotic Movements
Maria Mannone, Valeria Seidita, Antonio Chella
Citations: 2 • 2023
How violinists alter sound volume and tempo when expressing bright and dark timbres
Koji SHIBUYA, Natsumi Hasegawa
Citations: 2 • 2016
Influence of plectrum shape and jack velocity on the sound of the harpsichord: An experimental study
Arthur Paté, Jean‐Loïc Le Carrou, Roy Alexandre
Citations: 2 • 2017
Interactive Learning of Timbral Rhythms for Percussion Robots
Michael Krzyżaniak
Citations: 2 • 2018