Pitch Matching for Impulsive Sounds

Sound Quality work often seeks to bridge the gap between human perception and objective noise measurements. Sometimes a Sound Quality requirement is a concept, such as Pitch, that can have many meanings depending on the type of sound under consideration. The idea of impulsive sounds having indefinite pitch may be unfamiliar to the engineering world, but the field of music has used the idea for decades if not centuries. Indefinite pitch may be of value in Sound Quality work, especially when dealing with door closing sounds. No instrumentation yet exists to measure objectively the indefinite pitch of impulsive sounds. However, a pitch matching technique using sine wave bursts is described which allows the indefinite pitch of impulsive sounds to be measured by ear. Some limitations of the method are discussed as well as the need for basic psychoacoustical research on the topic of indefinite pitch.