--- pretty_name: Subharmonic Phonation / Vocal Fry (Preview) license: cc-by-nc-4.0 size_categories: [n<1K] tags: - audio - music - dataset - vocals - subharmonic_phonation - vocal_fry - undertone_singing - throat_singing - overtone_singing - extended_vocal_techniques - world_music - folk_vocals - acoustic_voice - ethnomusicology - sound_design - expressive_voice - ai_training_data - sampling_96khz - bitdepth_24bit - mono task_categories: [other] language: [und] thumbnail: thumbnail.png description: "A high-fidelity vocal dataset demonstrating subharmonic phonation — a complex extended vocal technique used across multiple world singing traditions — designed for AI training, music research, and creative audio development." --- ![Dataset Thumbnail](./thumbnail.png) # Harmonic Frontier Audio – Subharmonic Phonation / Vocal Fry, Preview (v0.9) **A high-fidelity vocal dataset designed for AI training, music research, and creative sound development.** **Subharmonic Phonation / Vocal Fry**, a **preview dataset**, created by **Harmonic Frontier Audio**. It provides researchers, developers, and musicians with a compact reference set demonstrating the quality, formatting, and metadata conventions used in the Harmonic Frontier Audio *Extended Vocal Techniques Series*. --- ### 🔎 Summary This dataset provides high-quality, rights-cleared audio recordings for use in **AI training, music research, and sound design**—capturing the rare vocal phenomenon known as **subharmonic phonation** (also called *undertone singing* or *throat singing, undertone style*). It offers clean, consistent examples of this technique—where the vocal folds vibrate at subharmonic ratios of the fundamental pitch—making it valuable for **expressive voice synthesis**, **timbre modeling**, and **world-vocal analysis**. This dataset is focused on musical and expressive applications of subharmonic phonation, not medical or speech research contexts. Developed by **Harmonic Frontier Audio**, the collection follows *The Proteus Standard™* for dataset provenance and ethical AI use. --- ## 🎶 About Subharmonic Phonation **Subharmonic phonation** (commonly referred to as *vocal fry* when produced at low frequencies) is a complex vocal technique in which the vocal folds oscillate at frequencies that are integer divisions of the fundamental pitch, creating a characteristic growling, overtone-rich sound. This technique produces a lower pitch—most commonly an octave below the sung note—by allowing the lower frequency to occur alongside the primary one. Sometimes described as **undertone singing**, this phenomenon can be understood as the *subharmonic counterpart* to overtone singing. It appears prominently in **Tuvan** and **Mongolian throat singing** traditions, **Tibetan Buddhist chant**, and other practices that explore the polyphonic possibilities of the human voice. It is also occasionally employed in **Western vocal performance**, **experimental music**, and **cinematic sound design** for its striking resonance and textural depth. This dataset presents a **neutral, non-traditional representation** of the technique — recorded as a general-purpose study of subharmonic phonation rather than as an emulation of any specific cultural or regional style. The intention is to provide **AI researchers, sound designers, and developers** with clean, controlled examples of this unique human sound source for analysis, synthesis, and expressive modeling. If you find this dataset useful, please consider giving it a 🤍 on Hugging Face to help others discover it. --- ## 📂 Contents **Audio Files (.wav)** - Recorded at **96 kHz / 24-bit** WAV format - Exported as **mono** - Fade-ins and fade-outs of **3–5 ms** applied for transient consistency - DC offset minimized and normalized to maintain consistent loudness - No compression, normalization, or external processing applied - High-pass filtered at ~40 Hz to remove subsonic rumble ### Categories in this Preview 1. **Sustained Phonation** - Sustained subharmonic tones across varying registers, sustained tone demonstrating the transition between subharmonic phonation and standard phonation 2. **Scales** - Scales demonstrating transitions between pitches 3. **Consonants** - Sustained pitches with repeated consonant sounds 4. **Short Melodic Exercise** - A simple original phrase demonstrating controlled transitions between pitches emphasizing the subharmonic registers --- **Metadata (.csv)** Includes structured fields for file name, category, content, note pitch (when applicable), IPA vowel/consonant symbol, microphone, channel configuration, sample rate, bit depth, recording chain, and dataset version. --- ## 🎤 Recording Notes - Recorded in a treated studio environment using a **single-mic setup**: - **Microphone:** Rode NT1-A dynamic microphone - **Recording chain:** Rode NT1-A → Zoom F8n Pro - Recorded at **96 kHz / 32-bit float**, rendered as **96 kHz / 24-bit** mono WAV for release. - Room tone, breath noise, and subtle resonant shifts were preserved to maintain natural realism. --- ## 🌈 Spectrogram Preview Below is a spectrogram showing the layered harmonic structure and subharmonic content characteristic of this technique: ![Spectrogram Preview](Spectrogram_Preview.png) --- ## 🎧 Listen – Demonstration Track Below is a short mixed and mastered music example featuring this dataset in context. It illustrates how **Subharmonic Phonation / Vocal Fry** can be integrated into a musical arrangement, demonstrating both the expressive timbre and harmonic richness of the technique. 🎵 **Track:** “Subharmonic Example” 🎚️ **Composer / Producer:** Blake Pullen 📦 **Source:** Harmonic Frontier Audio – *Subharmonic Phonation / Vocal Fry (Preview)* 📜 *This track is provided for demonstration purposes only and is not part of the dataset. It may not be used for AI training, redistribution, or derivative works.* 🪶 *The instrumental accompaniment was generated using Suno’s Pro plan under a commercial license. All vocal material and featured dataset sounds were performed, recorded, and produced by Blake Pullen for Harmonic Frontier Audio.* --- ## ⚡ Usage This preview pack is designed for: - **Evaluation** of Harmonic Frontier Audio dataset structure and fidelity - **Testing** AI and DSP systems that model or classify vocal timbres - **Creative sound design** and **extended voice synthesis** research 👉 Note: This is **not a full dataset**. The complete Harmonic Frontier Audio dataset for **Subharmonic Phonation / Vocal Fry** will include: - Broader pitch range and dynamic envelopes - Additional vowel shapes and harmonic ratios - Extended glissando and resonance control examples --- ## 💡 Full Dataset Availability This is a **preview pack** of the Subharmonic Phonation / Vocal Fry dataset. The complete dataset — with extended dynamic, vowel, and resonance variations — will be available for **licensing**. For licensing inquiries: 📩 info@harmonicfrontieraudio.com --- ## 📥 How to Use This Dataset in Python You can load the Parquet-converted version of this dataset directly with the `datasets` library: ```python from datasets import load_dataset dataset = load_dataset( "Harmonic-Frontier-Audio/Subharmonic_Phonation_Vocal_Fry_Preview", split="train" ) print(dataset) ``` > ⚙️ *Note: Parquet conversion and `load_dataset()` support will be available within 2–3 days of publication.* --- ### 🔗 Explore More from Harmonic Frontier Audio - [Scottish Smallpipes (Preview)](https://huggingface.co/datasets/Harmonic-Frontier-Audio/Bagpipes_Scottish_Smallpipes_in_A_Preview) - [Highland Bagpipes (Preview)](https://huggingface.co/datasets/Harmonic-Frontier-Audio/Bagpipes_Scottish_Highland_Bagpipes_Preview) - [Irish Tin Whistle in D (Preview)](https://huggingface.co/datasets/Harmonic-Frontier-Audio/Irish_Tin_Whistle_in_D_Preview) - [Subharmonic Phonation / Vocal Fry (Preview)](https://huggingface.co/datasets/Harmonic-Frontier-Audio/Subharmonic_Phonation_Vocal_Fry_Preview) *(All datasets follow The Proteus Standard™ for ethical dataset provenance and licensing.)* --- ## 📜 License Released under **[CC BY-NC 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)**. - Free for non-commercial use, testing, and research. - Commercial licensing available via Harmonic Frontier Audio. - A formal rights declaration is included in this dataset bundle. --- ## 📧 Contact Harmonic Frontier Audio 📩 info@harmonicfrontieraudio.com 🌐 https://harmonicfrontieraudio.com/ --- ## 🔮 Future Roadmap This preview release is part of the **Harmonic Frontier Audio – Extended Vocal Techniques Series**. Upcoming planned datasets include: - **Overtone Singing** - **Whisper Phonation** - **Falsetto** - **Vocal Percussion** - **Growl / Metal Vocals** Over time, Harmonic Frontier Audio will expand the Extended Vocal Techniques Series alongside its Folk and World Instrument catalogs — creating the first unified library of ethical, rights-cleared world and human vocal datasets for AI training, synthesis, and sound design. --- ## 🗒️ Release Notes **Version 0.9 (Nov. 2025)** – Initial Preview Pack release for Subharmonic Phonation / Vocal Fry. See `CHANGELOG.md` for detailed version history. --- ## Citation If you use this dataset in your research, please cite: Pullen, B. (2025). *Subharmonic Phonation / Vocal Fry Dataset (Preview)* [Data set]. Harmonic Frontier Audio. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17526976 ORCID: [https://orcid.org/0009-0003-4527-0178](https://orcid.org/0009-0003-4527-0178) ### BibTeX ```bibtex @dataset{pullen_2025_subharmonic_preview, author = {Blake Pullen}, title = {Subharmonic Phonation / Vocal Fry Dataset (Preview)}, year = {2025}, publisher = {Harmonic Frontier Audio}, version = {0.9}, doi = {10.5281/zenodo.17526976}, url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17526976} } ```