L541: Introductory Phonetics (Spring 2004)
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WaveSurfer Guide for L541

Part 11: Data Saving

[Index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11]

Preparation: Use the sound file snd4wsman10.wav for your practice.

When you save your measurements such as formant values or F0 values for your project, one thing to avoid as much as possible is to enter measured values manually (although we asked you to do manually for previous assignments). You need to use data handling tools such as MS Excel anyway. Don't write down the number on your notes in order to encode the numbers to Excel. This step-by-step process will increase error rates. You can write down the numbers on your log notes, but you need to type in the number at the same time.

When wavesurfer 'save data', it generates a text file for the whole file or the selection. There is no data column for time. So we need to calculate the time from the frame interval. The frame interval is stored if you check the option of 'Add header in export file'. Default is 0.01 sec.

Formant pane

Make sure the formants are tracked accurately before save the data. If the formants aren't tracked nicely, change the FFT window length and the LPC order. Change the following properties of the formant pane.

• Check 'Add header in export file' in the Formants tab.
• Change 'Column delimiter' to Comma or Tab.
• Check 'Save only data values for current selection' if you want to save only a portion of your data (e.g. vowel portion).

• The number of formants to be stored can be changed from 1 to 4.

Exported data file is a text format, and the extension is *.frm. Delimiter can be either space, tab, or comma.

Open the sound file snd4wsman10.wav. Create a formant pane. Change the properties.

Right-click on the formant pane, and select 'Save Data File..'. Select the location you want to save the file. Click 'Save'. This will create a new file named 'snd4wsman10.frm'.

Now open the Excel. From the menu bar, select 'File', and 'Open' the 'snd4wsman10.frm'. It looks like this. This example saved four formants.

Add a column before the first column. Enter the values from 0 with 0.01 increment (<= use the frame interval value you used.) to the end of the last data row.

Save the file as Excel format. Extension is *.xls

Pitch track pane, or other panes work in the same way.

As we seen in the previous page, a labeling file stores the time points (beginning and ending points of the selection) for each label. SO,... if you combined the data file such as a formant file (*.frm) or a pitch track file (*.f0) with its label file (*.lab), you can save the values of your targets.

1. Use the file 'snd4wsman10.xls'.
2. Insert one column between the first and second columns.
3. Insert the copied rows from a labeling file.
4. Sort data by time (=the first column).
5. Clean up the files to get the values to be needed.

Spectrum analysis is a bit easy. We can copy and past the freq and amplitude values at the selected point directly by right-clicking the point on the spectrum plot. It's also possible to export the data into a text file. The files have two column data. The first column has values of frequency, and the second column has values of amplitude.