System and method for audio transient detection and processing in the frequency domain

A computer-implemented method for detecting audio transients in frequency domain representations, comprising:

• transforming, via a processor, audio data into a frequency domain representation using a Short-Time Fourier Transform to generate a plurality of frequency bins across a plurality of audio frames;
• determining, via the processor, instantaneous frequencies for the plurality of frequency bins using phase information from the frequency domain representation;
• determining, via the processor, a noisiness value for a spectral peak of a frequency bin of the plurality of frequency bins by determining a minimum absolute difference between instantaneous frequencies of adjacent frequency bins within the spectral peak;
• determining, via the processor, that the spectral peak contains a transient component when the noisiness value exceeds a threshold value;
• clustering, via the processor, the transient component with other detected transient components based on spectral or temporal proximity;
• and
• processing, via the processor, the cluster of transient components.

An audio processing system, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
• perform a Short-Time Fourier Transform on audio data to generate frequency bins within audio frames;
• calculate instantaneous frequencies for the frequency bins using phase differences between consecutive audio frames;
• identify transient components by detecting asynchronous behavior in the instantaneous frequencies across adjacent frequency bins;
• cluster the identified transient components into groups based on similarity criteria;
• and
• apply targeted processing operations to the clustered transient components separately from non-transient spectral content.