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July 10, 2026 · View on GitHub

Pitch detection (F0 estimation). YIN, McLeod, pYIN, autocorrelation, AMDF, HPS, cepstrum, SWIPE.

Time-domain

YIN — cumulative mean normalized difference
McLeod — normalized square difference (MPM)
pYIN — probabilistic YIN with Beta prior
Autocorrelation — normalized autocorrelation
AMDF — average magnitude difference

Spectral

HPS — harmonic product spectrum
Cepstrum — real cepstrum peak picking
SWIPE — sawtooth waveform inspired estimator

Chroma, chord and key detection moved to @audio/mir (mir-chroma, mir-chord, mir-key).

Install

npm install @audio/pitch

Usage

import { yin, mcleod } from '@audio/pitch'

let fs = 44100
let frame = new Float32Array(2048)  // fill from your audio source

let result = yin(frame, { fs })
// → { freq: 440.1, clarity: 0.97 }  or  null

Works in Node.js and browser. No Web Audio API needed — operates on raw Float32Array samples.

Sliding windows — call repeatedly as new samples arrive:

let hop = 512
for (let i = 0; i + 2048 <= samples.length; i += hop) {
  let frame = samples.subarray(i, i + 2048)
  let result = yin(frame, { fs })
  if (result) console.log(i / fs, result.freq.toFixed(1))
}

Harmony pipeline — chroma → chord → key lives in @audio/mir:

import { chroma, chord, smoothChords, key } from '@audio/mir'

let frames = []
for (let i = 0; i + 4096 <= samples.length; i += 2048) {
  frames.push(chroma(samples.subarray(i, i + 4096), { fs, method: 'nnls' }))
}
let chords = smoothChords(frames, { selfProb: 0.5 })
let k = key(frames)

API

All pitch algorithms return { freq, clarity } | null:

freq — fundamental frequency in Hz
clarity — algorithm-specific confidence in [0, 1]
null — no periodic structure found (silence, noise, polyphony)

Time-domain algorithms (YIN, McLeod, pYIN, autocorrelation, AMDF) accept any buffer length. Spectral algorithms (HPS, cepstrum, SWIPE) require power-of-2 length.

Each algorithm is also installable standalone: npm install @audio/pitch-yin etc.

YIN

de Cheveigné & Kawahara, 2002. The reference algorithm for monophonic pitch estimation. Most cited, most tested, most robust.

import yin from '@audio/pitch-yin'

let result = yin(samples, { fs: 44100 })

Param	Default
`fs`	`44100`	Sample rate (Hz)
`threshold`	`0.15`	CMND threshold — lower = stricter, fewer detections

Use when: General-purpose monophonic pitch tracking — speech, singing, solo instruments. The most reliable choice when in doubt.
Not for: Polyphonic audio (returns dominant or null), real-time with hard latency budgets (needs full window).
Ref: de Cheveigné & Kawahara, "YIN, a fundamental frequency estimator for speech and music", JASA 2002.
Complexity: $O(N^2/4)$ — two nested passes over half the window.

McLeod

McLeod & Wyvill, 2005. Normalized square difference with smarter peak picking. Handles smaller windows — good for vibrato and fast pitch changes.

import mcleod from '@audio/pitch-mcleod'

let result = mcleod(samples, { fs: 44100 })

Param	Default
`fs`	`44100`	Sample rate (Hz)
`threshold`	`0.9`	Peak selection threshold as fraction of global max

Use when: Vibrato tracking, small hop sizes, singing voice where YIN occasionally double-triggers.
Not for: Highly noisy signals (NSDF is less thresholded than YIN's CMND).
Ref: McLeod & Wyvill, "A smarter way to find pitch", ICMC 2005.
Complexity: $O(N^2/4)$ — same asymptotic cost as YIN.

pYIN

Mauch & Dixon, 2014. Probabilistic YIN — runs YIN at multiple thresholds weighted by a Beta(2, 18) prior, producing a distribution over candidate pitches instead of a single hard pick. More robust than YIN on ambiguous frames.

import pyin from '@audio/pitch-pyin'

let result = pyin(samples, { fs: 44100 })
// → { freq: 440.1, clarity: 0.92, candidates: [{ freq: 440.1, prob: 0.85 }, ...] }

Param	Default
`fs`	`44100`	Sample rate (Hz)
`minFreq`	`50`	Minimum detectable frequency (Hz)
`maxFreq`	`2000`	Maximum detectable frequency (Hz)

Use when: Ambiguous pitched content — breathy vocals, noisy recordings, or when you need a pitch posterior for downstream HMM tracking.
Not for: Clean signals where YIN already works well (pYIN is ~10× slower due to multi-threshold sweep).
Ref: Mauch & Dixon, "pYIN: A Fundamental Frequency Estimator Using Probabilistic Threshold Distributions", ICASSP 2014.

Autocorrelation

Normalized autocorrelation — the simplest pitch estimator. Educational baseline.

import autocorrelation from '@audio/pitch-autocorrelation'

let result = autocorrelation(samples, { fs: 44100 })

Param	Default
`fs`	`44100`	Sample rate (Hz)
`threshold`	`0.5`	Minimum normalized autocorrelation value to accept

Use when: Learning, quick prototypes, signals with strong dominant periodicity and low noise.
Not for: Production — octave errors are common without additional heuristics.
Ref: Rabiner, "Use of autocorrelation analysis for pitch detection", IEEE TASSP 1977.
Complexity: $O(N^2/4)$ .

AMDF

Ross et al., 1974. Average Magnitude Difference Function — the classical predecessor to YIN. Measures average absolute difference between a signal and its delayed copy; minima indicate periodicity.

import amdf from '@audio/pitch-amdf'

let result = amdf(samples, { fs: 44100 })

Param	Default
`fs`	`44100`	Sample rate (Hz)
`minFreq`	`50`	Minimum detectable frequency (Hz)
`maxFreq`	`2000`	Maximum detectable frequency (Hz)
`threshold`	`0.3`	Normalized AMDF dip threshold

Use when: Low-complexity environments, embedded systems. Simpler and cheaper than YIN (no squaring, no cumulative normalization).
Not for: Noisy signals — lacks YIN's cumulative normalization that suppresses octave errors.
Ref: Ross et al., "Average magnitude difference function pitch extractor", IEEE TASSP 1974.
Complexity: $O(N^2/4)$ .

HPS

Schroeder, 1968. Harmonic Product Spectrum — multiplies the spectrum by its downsampled copies so that harmonic peaks align at the fundamental. Robust to the missing-fundamental problem.

import hps from '@audio/pitch-hps'

let result = hps(samples, { fs: 44100 })

Param	Default
`fs`	`44100`	Sample rate (Hz)
`harmonics`	`5`	Number of harmonic products
`minFreq`	`50`	Minimum detectable frequency (Hz)
`maxFreq`	`4000`	Maximum detectable frequency (Hz)
`cents`	`10`	Candidate spacing in cents
`threshold`	`0.1`	Minimum clarity to accept

Use when: Harmonic-rich signals (guitar, piano, brass). Naturally handles missing fundamentals.
Not for: Pure sinusoids (only one harmonic), very noisy signals.
Ref: Schroeder, "Period histogram and product spectrum", JASA 1968.
Requires: Power-of-2 window length.

Cepstrum

Noll, 1967. Real cepstrum — $c(\tau) = \text{IFFT}(\log |\text{FFT}(x)|)$ . A peak at quefrency $\tau$ corresponds to period $\tau$ in the time domain.

import cepstrum from '@audio/pitch-cepstrum'

let result = cepstrum(samples, { fs: 44100 })

Param	Default
`fs`	`44100`	Sample rate (Hz)
`minFreq`	`50`	Minimum detectable frequency (Hz)
`maxFreq`	`2000`	Maximum detectable frequency (Hz)
`threshold`	`0.3`	Minimum clarity to accept

Use when: Harmonic signals where you want a clean spectral-domain method. Good pedagogical complement to time-domain algorithms.
Not for: Low-pitched signals (quefrency resolution is limited by window length).
Ref: Noll, "Cepstrum pitch determination", JASA 1967.
Requires: Power-of-2 window length.

SWIPE

Camacho & Harris, 2008. SWIPE' (Sawtooth Waveform Inspired Pitch Estimator, prime harmonics). Measures spectral similarity between the window and a sawtooth template whose lobes sit at prime harmonics. More accurate than HPS on clean instrumental signals; robust against octave errors because only prime harmonics contribute.

Simplified single-window form: uses one FFT instead of the multi-resolution loudness pyramid of the original paper — sufficient for stationary windows.

import swipe from '@audio/pitch-swipe'

let result = swipe(samples, { fs: 44100 })

Param	Default
`fs`	`44100`	Sample rate (Hz)
`minFreq`	`60`	Minimum detectable frequency (Hz)
`maxFreq`	`4000`	Maximum detectable frequency (Hz)
`cents`	`10`	Candidate spacing in cents
`threshold`	`0.15`	Minimum clarity to accept

Use when: Clean instrumental signals, studio recordings, where sub-Hz accuracy matters.
Not for: Very noisy or reverberant signals (single-window form lacks multi-resolution robustness of the full SWIPE').
Ref: Camacho & Harris, "A sawtooth waveform inspired pitch estimator for speech and music", JASA 2008.
Requires: Power-of-2 window length.

Comparison

Pitch algorithms

	YIN	McLeod	pYIN	AMDF	HPS	Cepstrum	SWIPE
Domain	time	time	time	time	spectral	spectral	spectral
Accuracy	★★★★★	★★★★	★★★★★	★★★	★★★★	★★★	★★★★★
Noise robustness	★★★★★	★★★★	★★★★★	★★★	★★★	★★★	★★★★
Octave errors	rare	rare	rare	common	rare	occasional	rare
Missing fundamental	no	no	no	no	yes	yes	yes
Min window	~4 periods	~2 periods	~4 periods	~4 periods	power of 2	power of 2	power of 2
Best for	general	vibrato	ambiguous	embedded	harmonic-rich	pedagogical	studio