The
mel scale, proposed by
StevensStanley Smith Stevens was an American psychologist who founded Harvard's Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory and is credited with the introduction of Stevens' power law. Stevens authored a milestone textbook, the 1400+ page "Handbook of Experimental Psychology" . He was also one of the founding organizers...
,
VolkmanJohn E. Volkman was an American industrial scientist, spent his career at RCA, designing studios and auditoria, and sound reinforcement components....
and
NewmanEdwin Newman is a journalist and writer.Newman was a longtime correspondent for NBC News. He was a member of the network news team that announced to the nation the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963...
in 1937 is a perceptual scale of
pitchPitch represents the perceived fundamental frequency of a sound. It is one of the three major auditory attributes of sounds along with loudness and timbre. When the actual fundamental frequency can be precisely determined through physical measurement, it may differ from the perceived pitch because...
es judged by listeners to be equal in distance from one another. The reference point between this scale and normal
frequencyFrequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency....
measurement is defined by equating a 1000
HzThe hertz is a unit of frequency. It is defined as the number of complete cycles per second. It is the basic unit of frequency in the International System of Units , and is used worldwide in both general-purpose and scientific contexts...
tone, 40
dBThe decibel is a logarithmic unit of measurement that expresses the magnitude of a physical quantity relative to a specified or implied reference level. Since it expresses a ratio of two quantities with the same unit, it is a dimensionless unit...
above the listener's threshold, with a pitch of 1000 mels. Above about 500 Hz, larger and larger
intervalIn music theory, the term interval describes the relationship between the pitches of two notes.Intervals may be described as:* vertical if the two notes sound simultaneously* linear , if the notes sound successively....
s are judged by listeners to produce equal pitch increments.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Mel scale' Start a new discussion about 'Mel scale' Answer questions from other users |
The
mel scale, proposed by
StevensStanley Smith Stevens was an American psychologist who founded Harvard's Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory and is credited with the introduction of Stevens' power law. Stevens authored a milestone textbook, the 1400+ page "Handbook of Experimental Psychology" . He was also one of the founding organizers...
,
VolkmanJohn E. Volkman was an American industrial scientist, spent his career at RCA, designing studios and auditoria, and sound reinforcement components....
and
NewmanEdwin Newman is a journalist and writer.Newman was a longtime correspondent for NBC News. He was a member of the network news team that announced to the nation the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963...
in 1937 is a perceptual scale of
pitchPitch represents the perceived fundamental frequency of a sound. It is one of the three major auditory attributes of sounds along with loudness and timbre. When the actual fundamental frequency can be precisely determined through physical measurement, it may differ from the perceived pitch because...
es judged by listeners to be equal in distance from one another. The reference point between this scale and normal
frequencyFrequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency....
measurement is defined by equating a 1000
HzThe hertz is a unit of frequency. It is defined as the number of complete cycles per second. It is the basic unit of frequency in the International System of Units , and is used worldwide in both general-purpose and scientific contexts...
tone, 40
dBThe decibel is a logarithmic unit of measurement that expresses the magnitude of a physical quantity relative to a specified or implied reference level. Since it expresses a ratio of two quantities with the same unit, it is a dimensionless unit...
above the listener's threshold, with a pitch of 1000 mels. Above about 500 Hz, larger and larger
intervalIn music theory, the term interval describes the relationship between the pitches of two notes.Intervals may be described as:* vertical if the two notes sound simultaneously* linear , if the notes sound successively....
s are judged by listeners to produce equal pitch increments. As a result, four
octaveIn music, an octave , is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon which has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music," the use of which is "common in most musical systems." It may be derived from the...
s on the hertz scale above 500 Hz are judged to comprise about two octaves on the mel scale. The name
mel comes from the word
melody to indicate that the scale is based on pitch comparisons.
A popular formula to convert hertz into mel is:
And the inverse:
An alternate formula, not depending on choice of log base, is noted in Fant (1968):
Data from which some of these formulas derive are tabulated in Beranek (1949).
Other formulas are in Lindsay & Norman (1977).
External links