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Re: Praat sound analysis software...free download

Subject: Re: Praat sound analysis software...free download
From: Walter Knapp <>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 14:13:42 -0500
Wild Sanctuary wrote:
> Anyone know anything about this system? Download is free. Works in 
> all platforms (PC & Mac). Two folks in Holland put it together.
> 
> Bernie Krause

I tried the mac version a while back when I was looking for sonogram 
programs. I don't know if they have upgraded it. I've still got it on my 
mac. (version 3.9)

It's a pretty awkward interface as I remember. Kind of like a command 
line program that's not very happy in a window and for the 
mathematically inclined. I could only get pretty simple displays out of 
it when I tried it. Things like the waveform display that Peak puts up 
when you open the file took bringing in the file and going through a 
bunch of dialogs. I did not seem to be getting to anything interesting, 
so shelved it and have not gotten back to it. It did not compete with 
Soundhack or Spark XL for general sonograms.

The big thing against it was it seemed to be trying to keep it all in 
memory, which really limits soundfile size. It would read a large file, 
but as soon as you asked it to display something about it you'd get out 
of memory messages looking for very large amounts of memory. By giving 
it 100 megs to play in I could get it to run fairly well if I did not 
feed it too long a file. At the recommended 22 megs not much would run 
of what I wanted.

Most of it's functionality seems to be in voice analysis or voice 
synthesis. You can get a sonogram out of it that you can specify more 
completely mathematically. There are many more options than most 
sonogram systems.

It's math routines seem relatively slow, not like the realtime sonogram 
I use. Unless it's been updated it's using fairly dated, old style 
programming and interface. And is for those familiar with the math 
formulas associated with sound analysis.

Easiest way to find out is simply to download it and play. It's one I 
did not just toss and will play with some more. On my G4, OS 9.2.2 it 
seems to run fine.

Walt





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