Temporal Synchronization of Multiple Audio Signals

Given the proliferation of consumer media recording devices, events often give rise to a large number of recordings. These recordings are taken from different spatial positions and do not have reliable timestamp information. In this paper, we present two robust graph-based approaches for synchronizing multiple audio signals. The graphs are constructed atop the over-determined system resulting from pairwise signal comparison using cross-correlation of audio features. The first approach uses a Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) technique, while the second uses Belief Propagation (BP) to solve the system. Both approaches can provide excellent solutions and robustness to pairwise outliers, however the MST approach is much less complex than BP. In addition, an experimental comparison of audio features-based synchronization shows that spectral flatness outperforms the zero-crossing rate and signal energy.