Frequency-domain source identification and manipulation in stereo mixes for enhancement, suppression and re-panning applications

We describe a frequency-domain framework for source identification, separation and manipulation in stereo music recordings. Based on a simplified model of the stereo mix, we describe how a similarity measure between the short-time Fourier transforms (STFT) of the input signals is used to identify time-frequency regions occupied by each source based on the panning coefficient assigned to it during the mix. Individual sources are identified and manipulated by clustering the time-frequency components with a given panning coefficient. After modification, an inverse STFT is used to synthesize a time-domain processed signal. We describe applications of the technique in source suppression, enhancement and re-panning.