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Session 4: Session 4: Techniques & Audio Techniques & Audio PreservationPreservation

University of California at Santa Barbara, June 24-27, 2008

Arienne M. DwyerUniversity of Kansas

Yoshi OnoUniversity of Alberta

June 24-27/ June30-Jul 3, 2008

Dwyer/Ono Audio 4: Techniques & Preservation

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Session 4’s focus

I. Homework reviewII. Transcriber practiceIII. Audio data management

- Collecting & storing metadata- Conversion between different formats

IV. Storing audio data (DVDs/HDs)

June 24-27/ June30-Jul 3, 2008

Dwyer/Ono Audio 4: Techniques & Preservation

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Homework from Day 3

Open a new transcription (File – New) Open audio (Cntrl-A or File-Open Audio) Fill in the headers by clicking on them:

Report (=topic); Speaker (name or code) Listen to first unit (phrase or utterance) Stop cursor with [Tab], and type after green dot; then (with cursor at end of text line) hit [Enter] Zoom is “Resolution” (Alt-9=higher, Alt-0=low)

Save your transcription file (...trs).

June 24-27/ June30-Jul 3, 2008

Dwyer/Ono Audio 4: Techniques & Preservation

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What (else) can you do with Transcriber?

Time-aligned text in any (L-to-R?) encoding; Extra/Para-linguistic features (laughter;

codeswitching) Latin-script example CJK (Asian character) example

Speech overlap (see Demo)

(mostly) English-language example...demo...

June 24-27/ June30-Jul 3, 2008

Dwyer/Ono Audio 4: Techniques & Preservation

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Tips

Loop around a section: Select a section of audio Signal – Playback mode – Loop on segment.. Play segment; it will loop until you stop it To reset, click Signal – Playback –

Continuous Add speaking turn (i.e. new speaker): Cntl-T Add overlap (Cntl-T; check speech overlap) Revert (...to last saved version; no undo)

June 24-27/ June30-Jul 3, 2008

Dwyer/Ono Audio 4: Techniques & Preservation

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2 levels of transcription

June 24-27/ June30-Jul 3, 2008

Dwyer/Ono Audio 4: Techniques & Preservation

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Using Transcriber data elsewhere

Transcriber files are just structured text. Can be opened in any text editor “as is” Can also be exported to some specialized formats

(Childes, LDC, STM); the first could be used to put the data into e.g. Word or Excel

Trs files can be imported to ELAN + Toolbox More than one annotation tier can be created:

In one line (best separated by a symbol, e.g. | ) In parallel trs files (make one, save under new name, fill in

morph gloss, save, save under new name, fill in English gloss, etc.)

(not recommended) You can use Overlap for two tiers

June 24-27/ June30-Jul 3, 2008

Dwyer/Ono Audio 4: Techniques & Preservation

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III. Audio Data Management

a. Collecting & storing metadatab. Conversion between different audio

formats

June 24-27/ June30-Jul 3, 2008

Dwyer/Ono Audio 4: Techniques & Preservation

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IV. Data management: keeping records

Creating metadata, storage, and retrieval Metadata: data about data Library records;

electronic address books; Google maps Could be a bibliographic record Recording circumstances (date, place) Recording itself (device, mike, frequency...) Participants (name, gender, age, profession..) Language code (ISO 639-3)

Linguistic example: Salar

June 24-27/ June30-Jul 3, 2008

Dwyer/Ono Audio 4: Techniques & Preservation

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June 24-27/ June30-Jul 3, 2008

Dwyer/Ono Audio 4: Techniques & Preservation

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Gathering metadata

(small?) notebook Paper forms Digital (e.g. PDA interface)

June 24-27/ June30-Jul 3, 2008

Dwyer/Ono Audio 4: Techniques & Preservation

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Working with Metadata

Put in a structured format, e.g. spreadsheet or database.

Put each piece of information in a different column, e.g. villageExonym, villageEndonym, Participant1Age, Participant1Sex, Participant1Education…

Keep all your metadata in this file.

June 24-27/ June30-Jul 3, 2008

Dwyer/Ono Audio 4: Techniques & Preservation

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IIIb. Conversion

Conversion between different audio formats In Audacity, need to download “lame” add-on

(google “Audacity + lame”) from wav to mp3 (for presentation) from mp3 to wav (for preservation)

(the latter conversion will not improve the limitations of an mp3 file; it’s better to start out with an uncompressed wave if possible.)

June 24-27/ June30-Jul 3, 2008

Dwyer/Ono Audio 4: Techniques & Preservation

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IV. Data backup and storage/archiving

Storing audio data (DVDs/HDs) make multiple copies in case.....

multiple DVDs/CDs stored separately Gold CD-R/DVD-R, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_media_preservation multiple hard drives (university servers, portable

drives, etc.) space issue

plan ahead; talk to tech people/archivists data on CD/DVD need to be copied periodically

(archival quality media)

June 24-27/ June30-Jul 3, 2008

Dwyer/Ono Audio 4: Techniques & Preservation

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V. Microphone techniques

Site assessment (in advance) - acoustics Turn off TVs, fans, florescent lights, fridges, clocks that ring or tick

loudly, cell phones If boisterous, you could hang a mic from a rafter with a long cable

If the room echoes, hang cloth on wall Using one microphone (and in general)

Keep mics close to speaker/singer Use foam filter to prevent pops from mouth Use “fur” filter for windy conditions Avoid placing mic directly on hard surface

Use a tripod and/or put cloth or towel on table

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Dwyer/Ono Audio 4: Techniques & Preservation

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V: Wrap-up: Q & A

Given what we’ve learned... Which challenging recording settings do

you have (or can you imagine)?What would the class recommend for:

Extraneous noise reduction Microphone choice Mic placement