Sound editor

Praat for Beginners:
The Sound editor: overview

The Sound editor displays the waveform of a Sound object, and lets you select and view signal segments, play them back, zoom in on them, save them as files, cut/copy and paste them, and perform various analyses.

  1. Opening the Sound editor
  2. The functions of the Sound editor window
  3. Spectrograms
  4. Formant tracks
  5. Voice pitch
  6. Glottal pulses
  7. Intensity

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1. Opening the Sound editor

  • In the Objects window, select a Sound object from the list
    • To get a Sound object into the Objects list in the first place, either make a new recording, or open a sound file (open the Read menu and select Read from file)
  • Click View&Edit in the actions list:
  • The Sound editor opens in a new window:
  • The functions of the encircled areas are describeded in the next section.
  • Analyses can be performed directly from the Sound editor, selected from the appropriate menu.
  • Each analysis can be shown alongside the waveform.
  • Several Sound editors can be opened at a time if you wish, showing different analyses, or different segments of the waveform, or zoomed etc.
  • Each analysis can be transferred to the Picture window for image editing, and printing or saving.

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2. The functions of the Sound editor window

Follow the links for more detailed descriptions.
Taking the green areas of the previous picture, in clockwise order:

  • The menu labels are selfexplanatory
  • Cursor: (vertical line in the waveform) used to mark a location in the waveform, or to define a selection in the waveform
  • Playback bars: immediately below the waveform, three bars that play back various segments of the current Sound object.
  • Group: this box controls linking with other Sound editor windows
  • Scroll bar: the usual Windows scroll bar, to shift the waveform image left or right when only part of the Sound object is in view.
  • Zoom controls: various zooming modes.
  • Amplitude scale: Normalized to ±1

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3. Spectrograms
  • An example of a wideband spectrogram.

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4. Formant tracks
  • An example of formant tracks superimposed on the spectrogram.
  • Visually, this display is useful to help you fine-tune the analysis parameters
  • The analysis lets you read the formant frequencies at any instant.

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5. Voice pitch
  • An example of a voice fundamental frequency analysis.

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6. Glottal pulses
  • An example of the voice glottal pulse display, superimposed on the waveform.

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7. Intensity
  • An example of intensisty analysis, showing the local variation of acoustic energy.
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© Sidney Wood and SWPhonetics, 1994-2012
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