ANALYZING PITCH ESTIMATION ACCURACY IN CROSS-TALK SCENARIOS: A STUDY WITH WIND INSTRUMENTS

Intonation accuracy is crucial for wind instrument ensembles, where pitch deviations affect harmonic coherence. Music Information Retrieval (MIR) techniques, particularly pitch estimation, offer potential for real-time intonation monitoring. However, in natural ensemble settings, microphone cross-talk can compromise pitch accuracy. In this article, we systematically investigate the impact of cross-talk on pitch estimation for wind instruments using the ChoraleBricks dataset, which contains multi-track recordings of isolated choral performances. By simulating cross-talk scenarios with Gaussian noise, single- and multi-instrument interference, we assess the robustness of lightweight, real-time capable estimators like YIN and SWIPE against more advanced methods like PYIN and CREPE. Our results show that pitch estimation accuracy declines significantly below an SNR threshold of 15 dB. To address this, we identify instrument-specific challenges and propose frequency filtering to mitigate cross-talk interference. These findings inform the development of robust, real-time intonation monitoring systems for wind ensembles, with applications in music education, performance analysis, and rehearsal optimization.