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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2026
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.19109 |
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| _version_ | 1866910001850744832 |
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| author | Vohra, Arhan Akama, Taketo |
| author_facet | Vohra, Arhan Akama, Taketo |
| contents | Perceptual similarity representations enable music retrieval systems to determine which songs sound most similar to listeners. State-of-the-art approaches based on task-specific training via self-supervised metric learning show promising alignment with human judgment, but are difficult to interpret or generalize due to limited dataset availability. We show that pretrained text-audio embeddings (CLAP and MuQ-MuLan) offer comparable perceptual alignment on similarity tasks without any additional fine-tuning. To surpass this baseline, we introduce a novel method to perceptually align pretrained embeddings with source separation and linear optimization on ABX preference data from listening tests. Our model provides interpretable and controllable instrument-wise weights, allowing music producers to retrieve stem-level loops and samples based on mixed reference songs. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_19109 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Interpretable and Perceptually-Aligned Music Similarity with Pretrained Embeddings Vohra, Arhan Akama, Taketo Sound Perceptual similarity representations enable music retrieval systems to determine which songs sound most similar to listeners. State-of-the-art approaches based on task-specific training via self-supervised metric learning show promising alignment with human judgment, but are difficult to interpret or generalize due to limited dataset availability. We show that pretrained text-audio embeddings (CLAP and MuQ-MuLan) offer comparable perceptual alignment on similarity tasks without any additional fine-tuning. To surpass this baseline, we introduce a novel method to perceptually align pretrained embeddings with source separation and linear optimization on ABX preference data from listening tests. Our model provides interpretable and controllable instrument-wise weights, allowing music producers to retrieve stem-level loops and samples based on mixed reference songs. |
| title | Interpretable and Perceptually-Aligned Music Similarity with Pretrained Embeddings |
| topic | Sound |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.19109 |