Comparison of Three DFT-Based Fine Frequency Estimation Methods Using Synthetic Vibrato Tone Models

Whereas vibrato is one of the most frequently used techniques to enrich vocal and musical instrument sounds, the performance of fine frequency estimation methods has not been studied much for vibrato tones. We present three models of synthetic vibrato tones and compare three DFT-based fine frequency estimation methods using the models, which are phase difference estimation (PDE), zero-padding method (ZPM), and corrected quadratically interpolated fast Fourier transform (CQIFFT). Experimental results show that CQIFFT and ZPM with a large number of padded zeroes are effective in the fine frequency estimation of vibrato tones. We also show an example of applying each method to a flute vibrato tone. We expect that the results will be helpful in choosing a fine frequency estimation method for DFT-based methods to analyze the frequencies of vibrato tones.