title: Replacing the Orchestra? - The Discernibility of Sample Library and Live Orchestra Sounds.
abstract: Recently, musical sounds from pre-recorded orchestra sample libraries (OSL) have become indispensable in music production for the stage or popular charts. Surprisingly, it is unknown whether human listeners can identify sounds as stemming from real orchestras or OSLs. Thus, an internet-based experiment was conducted to investigate whether a classic orchestral work, produced with sounds from a state-of-the-art OSL, could be reliably discerned from a live orchestra recording of the piece. It could be shown that the entire sample of listeners (N = 602) on average identified the correct sound source at 72.5%. This rate slightly exceeded Alan Turing's well-known upper threshold of 70% for a convincing, simulated performance. However, while sound experts tended to correctly identify the sound source, participants with lower listening expertise, who resembled the majority of music consumers, only achieved 68.6%. As non-expert listeners in the experiment were virtually unable to tell the real-life and OSL sounds apart, it is assumed that OSLs will become more common in music production for economic reasons.
authors.affiliation: University of Music, Drama and Media, Hanover, Germany.
authors.forename: Reinhard
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3356-3478
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kopiez
authors.affiliation: University of Music, Drama and Media, Hanover, Germany.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wolf
authors.affiliation: State University of Music and Performing Arts, Stuttgart, Germany.
authors.forename: Friedrich
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Platz
authors.affiliation: University of Music, Drama and Media, Hanover, Germany.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mons
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D009146:Music; D013016:Sound; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires