Spectral-whiteness is an audio analysis metric that quantifies how uniformly acoustic energy is distributed across the frequency spectrum of a signal. It measures the flatness of the power spectral density, with higher values indicating a flatter (whiter) distribution and lower values indicating concentration of energy in specific frequency bands. Computed as the ratio of the geometric mean to the arithmetic mean of the power spectrum across all frequency bins, it serves as a timbral descriptor in music information retrieval for genre classification, instrument recognition, and audio quality assessment. The persistence mechanism is computational: it exists as a derived feature value extracted by analysis software from time-domain audio signals. [formal: albedo spectralis | substrate: behavior | horizon: a moment | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
spectral-whiteness
Spectral-whiteness is an audio analysis metric that quantifies how uniformly acoustic energy is distributed across the frequency spectrum of a signal. It measures the flatness of the power spectral density, with higher values indicating a…
Definition
Why it is in scope
Human-made audio analysis metric: a spectral feature measuring how uniformly energy is distributed across frequency bins, analogous to white noise in its flatness. Used in music information retrieval for timbre classification, genre detection, and audio quality assessment. Persists as a computed value in feature extraction pipelines.
Names and aliases
- spectral-whitenessen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmsop0xz702e7jlssmzq3gk17DERIVED_FROM →
Which came first? The concept of spectrum predates spectral-whiteness. Spectral-whiteness was derived by applying the notion of 'whiteness' (flat spectral density) to the spectrum concept. Spectrum fed into the development of spectral-whiteness as a specific characteristic of spectral distributions.
- cmsqglbgv00763e32jisx8hz3INSTANCE_OF →
spectral-whiteness IS a specific kind of spectral feature — it is a spectral feature that quantifies how flat the spectral density is. A competent speaker calls it 'a type of spectral feature.' Files against nearest kind per Law 9.
- cmsop0xz702e7jlssmzq3gk17DEPENDS_ON →
Spectral whiteness quantifies how flat a spectral density distribution is. It operates by analyzing spectral data — remove spectrum and there is no spectral density to characterize. The removal test passes: spectral whiteness needs spectrum as its data domain.
Relations to this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Aug 13, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC
- Content hash
- db12984df53a8cbfe80f4d12623819f111d1fe175d3d4c32e29a87b09a4bf28e