ACOUSTIC TECHNIQUES TO TRACE THE ORIGINS OF A MUSICAL RECORDING

A recent dispute over the ownership of original material in a commerci al music recording was settled as a direct result of a comparative aco ustic analysis specially formulated to deal with the demands of the ca se. The dispute centred on whether a given piece of popular music was a re-recording by a session musician of the original score, or a re-mi x from an original recording. Direct comparisons based on the waveform s and/or spectra were not possible since the new recording included ot her instruments in its mix. This paper describes the application of a novel acoustic methodology leading to results which suggested that the new recording was in fact a re-mix of the original recording and not a copy performance by a session musician.