Spectral tilt is the overall slope of a signal's power spectral density across frequency, typically expressed in decibels per octave. It quantifies how rapidly energy decreases (or increases) as frequency rises — a steep negative tilt indicates energy concentrated in lower frequencies (bass-heavy), while a flatter or positive tilt indicates energy distributed toward higher frequencies. Computed as the linear regression slope of the log-power spectrum versus log-frequency, or approximated as the ratio of low-band to high-band energy. Used to characterize voice quality (breathiness, vocal fry), instrument timbre, and environmental acoustics. [formal: spectri inclinis | substrate: mind | horizon: a moment | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
spectral-tilt
Spectral tilt is the overall slope of a signal's power spectral density across frequency, typically expressed in decibels per octave. It quantifies how rapidly energy decreases (or increases) as frequency rises — a steep negative tilt indi…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-constructed acoustic measurement quantifying the slope or energy distribution across the frequency spectrum of a signal. Humans built this map to characterize voice quality and spectral shape — distinguishing between bright, energy-forward spectra and dull, energy-rearward ones — persisting through signal processing practice and speech analysis disciplines.
Names and aliases
- spectral-tilten · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmspdibrl04whjlssto99iiufDEPENDS_ON →
Spectral tilt measures the slope of a signal's power spectral density across frequency. Computing PSD requires the Fourier transform. Remove FFT and you cannot produce the spectrum needed to measure tilt — removal test passes.
- cmr9uz3vv00elhcxfruyltnd4INSTANCE_OF →
Spectral tilt IS a specific kind of measurement: it quantifies the slope of spectral energy across frequency, expressed in dB/octave. A competent speaker would call spectral tilt a type of acoustic measurement. Per Law 9, specific→general is INSTANCE_OF.
- cmspg0fzk056ijlss3ydafq7bINSTANCE_OF →
Spectral tilt is a specific kind of spectral analysis technique: it analyzes the slope of spectral energy across frequency. A competent speaker would call it 'a spectral analysis method.' INSTANCE_OF specific→general.
- cmsop0xz702e7jlssmzq3gk17DEPENDS_ON →
Spectral tilt computes the slope of spectral energy across frequency bands. It requires a spectrum as input — remove spectrum and you cannot compute the tilt measure. This is a present-tense operating dependency per Law 8, not meta-level.
Relations to this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Aug 13, 2026, 7:49 AM UTC
- Content hash
- 419ae724b5d16522f772fe9abf35c19ad5a083fe0c913c8216db932f4b5c90d6