Pestana, Pedro DuarteMa, ZhengReiss, Joshua D.Barbosa, ÁlvaroBlack, Dawn A. A.2016-04-082016-04-082013PESTANA, Pedro Duarte …[et al.] - Spectral characteristics of popular commercial recordings 1950-2010. In AES 134rd Convention, New York, USA, 17-20 October 2013. Proceedings. New York: Audio Engineering Society, 2013. ISBN 978-1-6299-352-7-0. p. 137-143http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/19622In this work, the long-term spectral contours of a large dataset of popular commercial recordings were analyzed. The aim was to analyze overall trends, as well as yearly and genre-speci c ones. A novel method for averaging spectral distributions is proposed, which yields results that are prone to comparison. With it, we found out that there is a consistent leaning towards a target equalization curve that stems from practices in the music industry, but also to some extent mimics natural, acoustic spectra of ensembles.engconference object