Analytic vs. holistic approaches for the live search of sound presets using graphical interpolation

The comparative study presented in this paper focuses on two approaches for the search of sound presets using a specific geometric touch app. The first approach is based on independent sliders on screen and is called analytic. The second is based on interpolation between presets represented by polygons on screen and is called holistic. Participants had to listen to, memorize, and search for sound presets characterized by four parameters. Ten different configurations of sound synthesis and processing were presented to each participant, once for each approach. The performance scores of 28 participants (not including early testers) were computed using two measured values: the search duration, and the parametric distance between the reference and answered presets. Compared to the analytic sliders-based interface, the holistic interpolation-based interface demonstrated a significant performance improvement for 60% of sound synthesizers. The other 40% led to equivalent results for the analytic and holistic interfaces. Using sliders, expert users performed nearly as well as they did with interpolation. Beginners and intermediate users struggled more with sliders, while the interpolation allowed them to get quite close to experts' results.