%0 Conference Paper %B ICMC %D 1997 %T Database of Challenging Musical Sounds for Evaluation and Refinement of Pitch Estimators %A Freed, Adrian %A Jehan, Tristan %C Thessaloniki, Hellas %I ICMA %P [not published] %U http://cnmat.berkeley.edu/publication/database_challenging_musical_sounds_evaluation_and_refinement_pitch_estimators %X Speech researchers have made the most thorough study of the performance of pitch estimation algorithms. A key to their work is the evaluation of algorithm performance against standardized databases of speech that have been "hand" analyzed. Such a database does not exist for musical signals. As a result, pitch estimation papers in the computer music community describe algorithms evaluated using short sound examples often chosen to show new work in the best light. It is thus impossible to predict performance of published algorithms in real musical situations, and difficult for researchers to identify fruitful areas for new work. We describe a publicly available database of musical sound files intended to redress these difficulties. %Z no published article, but listed in conference schedule