Cadenza Woodwind

This publicly available data is synthesised audio for woodwind quartets including renderings of each instrument in isolation. The data was created to be used as training data within Cadenza's second open machine learning challenge (CAD2) for the task on rebalancing classical music ensembles. The dataset is also intended for developing other music information retrieval (MIR) algorithms using machine learning. It was created because of the lack of large-scale datasets of classical woodwind music with separate audio for each instrument and permissive license for reuse. Music scores were selected from the OpenScore String Quartet corpus. These were rendered for two woodwind ensembles of (i) flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon; and (ii) flute, oboe, alto saxophone and bassoon. This was done by a professional music producer using industry-standard software. Virtual instruments were used to create the audio for each instrument using software that interpreted expression markings in the score. Convolution reverberation was used to simulate a performance space and the ensembles mixed. The dataset consists of the audio and associated metadata

Nineteen scores were randomly selected from the OpenScore String Quartet corpus. The synthesis of these as woodwind ensembles was performed by a sound engineering professional using professional software. The scores were loaded into the music notation software Steinberg's Dorico. The string parts were allocated to flute, oboe, clarinet (or alto saxophone) and bassoon. Virtual instruments were used to create the audio for each instrument: Miroslav Philharmonik 2 by IK Multimedia for the saxophone and Intimate Studio Winds by 8Dio for the other parts. The quartets were then imported into Avid's Pro Tools where they were mixed and reverberation added. Metadata were generated..