2026/08/01 by Minhui Lu, Joshua D. Reiss
Engineering · Computer Science · #eess.AS #cs.LG
Accepted as a challenge paper at the 29th International Conference on Digital Audio Effects (DAFx 2026), Cambridge, MA, USA, September, 2026
arxiv created 2026/08/01 · arxiv updated 2026/08/04
Task B of the 1st DAFx Parameter Estimation Challenge requires estimating the frequencies, decay rates, gains, and number of modes in a dense plate-reverb impulse response. Weak and overlapping modes make sparse peak detection prone to severe undercounting. We train an ExtraTrees regressor on simulator-generated data to predict mode counts in four frequency bands. These counts define dense frequency grids, after which a differentiable all-pole resonator model refines decay and gain while keeping frequency fixed. On two separate synthetic validation sets, the system reduces a local challenge-style error by about 66% relative to the official default peak-picking baseline. The improvement is mainly associated with lower mode-count mismatch, while decay and gain remain the largest error sources. These findings support separating modal-density estimation from continuous parameter fitting.