Remixing Preferences for Western Instrumental Classical Music of Bilateral Cochlear Implant Users

Abstract

For people with profound hearing loss, a cochlear implant (CI) is able to provide access to sounds that support speech perception. With current technology, most CI users obtain very good speech understanding in quiet listening environments. However, many CI users still struggle when listening to music. Efforts have been made to preprocess music for CI users and improve their music enjoyment. This work investigates potential modifications of instrumental music to make it more accessible for CI users. For this purpose, we used two datasets with varying complexity and containing individual tracks of instrumental music. The first dataset contained trios and it was newly created and synthesized for this study. The second dataset contained orchestral music with a large number of instruments. Bilateral CI users and normal hearing listeners were asked to remix the multitracks grouped into melody, bass, accompaniment, and percussion. Remixes could be performed in the amplitude, spatial, and spectral domains. Results showed that CI users preferred tracks being panned toward the right side, especially the percussion component. When CI users were grouped into frequent or occasional music listeners, significant differences in remixing preferences in all domains were observed.