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may 2026

Music Recommendation Systems: A New Side of Recommendation: Classical DSP System

The recommendation system I just built was fine, but it relied on MuQ embeddings, and so was not very explainable or modifiable. Also, there needs to be a better and faster way to verify the recommendation predictions than playing them at a monthly concert and seeing the audience's reaction.

That is why I plan to build a classical DSP-based recommendation system, which relies solely on classical DSP methods of similarity tracking rather than embedding-dependent methods. My plan is to build a similarity vector of 6-7 components.

The vector should include the following quantities:

  • Melodic similarity
  • Harmonic similarity, including chord progression and any dissonance, which I would say is memorable
  • Rhythmic similarity
  • Valence similarity
  • Arousal similarity
  • Timbre similarity
  • Prominence of the chorus: whether it features often, or whether the song is more flowing or random, which affects memorability in my opinion

I also have classified the components into two types:

  • Similarity-only components, meaning components that derive their quantitative value from similarity operations themselves: melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic
  • State-function components, meaning components that have quantitative values for a single song that are then compared for similarity: valence, arousal, and prominence
  • I am not sure yet about timbre, and how that can be classified.