ICASSP Cadenza Challenge: Music remixing for hearing aids: ICASSP 2024

Someone with a hearing loss is listening to music via their hearing aids or headphones. The challenge is to develop a signal processing system that allows a personalised rebalancing of the music to improve the listening experience, for example by amplifying the vocals relative to the sound of the band. One approach to this would be to a demix the music and then apply gains to the separated tracks to change the balance when the music is downmixed to stereo. There is a global challenge of an ageing population, which will contribute to 1 in 10 people having disabling hearing loss by 2050. Hearing loss causes problems when listening to music. It can make picking out lyrics more difficult, with music becoming duller as high frequencies disappear. This reduces the enjoyment of music and can lead to disengagement from listening and music-making, reducing the health and well-being effects people otherwise get from music. We want to get more of the ICASSP community to consider diverse hearing and so allow those with a hearing loss to benefit from the latest signal processing advances.

Visit the Challenge website for details and more information!