• Praat is a free, cross-platform program used in linguistics for
  • speech analysis, synthesis, and manipulation
  • labeling and segmentation
  • listening experiments
  • statistics
• Download here

In this tutorial you will learn about:

• the Praat interface
• objects
• spectrograms/waveforms

You will also learn how to:

• record sound objects
• view and reproduce sound objects
• import sound files
• save sound files

Upon opening Praat, you should see two windows:

1. Praat Objects: (left) the window where objects are stored, accessed, and manipulated
2. Praat Picture: (right) the window where graphing outputs are displayed

• We will mainly work in Praat Objects (you can close Praat Picture if you want)
• Notice there is not a lot going on without any objects

In order to record a sound object you must have an internal microphone or

you must connect a microphone to your computer

• To record a sound object:
  • Go to the Praat Object window
  • Click New > Record mono Sound
• A SoundRecorder window will appear

From this window you can:

• Choose...
  • Channels (mono/stereo)
  • Input source (Built-in Microphone)
  • Sampling frequency (44100 Hz)
• Record, Stop, and Play speech
• Name the object (default is 'Untitled')

Record a sound object

1. Use Record and Stop to record some speech
2. Use Play to listen to your recording
3. Repeat until you are satisfied
4. Give your recording a name (ex. 'test1') and then choose Save to list & Close

• The recording will appear in the Object window

• You have created a Sound object, which now appears in the Praat Objects window, under the heading Objects
• Notice that Praat gives the object a number and tells you what kind of object it is:
  1. Sound test1
• Also notice that there is now a long menu of options on the right
• Praat has many types of objects, each of which have different options in their respective menus (these are the options that correspond
  with sound objects)

• Click View & Edit to create a spectrogram of the Sound object

• You should see something similar to the image on the right
• The figure is divided into two parts:
  1. waveform/oscillogram (top):
     two dimension display of sound pressure over time
  2. spectrogram (bottom):
     three dimension display of amplitude (vertical axis) and frequency (darkness) over time.
• You can reproduce the recording by pressing the
  tab key, and stop the recording by pressing tab again.
• You can use either the waveform or the spectrogram
  to select portions of the recording
• Select a portion and listen to it

View options

• in: zoom in
• out: zoom out
• sel: zoom in on a selected area (must select area first)
• bak: return to previous view
• all: zoom all the way out (show entire duration of sound object)

• Saving a sound object to your computer is easy
• In the Praat Objects window, highlight the object you would like to save
• Click the Save tab
• Select the format you would like (we will typically use .WAV files)
• Another window will pop-up in which you can name the file, as well as specify the directory to which it will be saved

• If you already have sound files to work with...

• Importing a sound file from your computer is equally easy
• In the Praat Objects window click the Open tab
• Select Read from file...
• Another window will pop-up in which you can find your sound file and select Open
• The file will then appear as a sound object in the Objects section of the Praat Objects window

Practice

• Download the following sound file to your computer, open it in Praat and create a spectrogram (paper.wav)

In this short tutorial you learned about:

• the Praat interface
• objects
• spectrograms/waveforms

and now you are able to:

• record sound objects
• view and reproduce sound objects
• import sound files
• save sound files

Additional help

• Try another praat tutorial
• Email me (joseph.casillas@rutgers.edu)

• ref