Sound analysis software
Sound analysis software
| System Requirements | BatSound highlights | BatSound general features | Sound file editing | Analysis types | The Virtual Bat Detector | High-speed sampling |
BatSound real-time spectrogram software
Download an evaluation version (1210 kb) of BatSound
(version 3.3)! To install, run the file setup.exe. Before
installing, please check that your computer meets the System
requirements. Please use
the BatSound on-line help for instructions on how to use the
software.
Analysis of the bat calls may be required in some
situations e.g. in order to positively identify a certain
species. The new software BatSound is an efficient,
high-performance tool for various types of sound analysis. It is
suitable for sound analysis in general, but also includes a
number of features particularly useful to analyze bat calls
recorded from a bat detector. A few examples of analyses of bat
call sequences are shown below.
BatSound
highlights
An easy-to-use and powerful tool for
analysis of bioacoustic sounds. The low price makes it the
perfect choice for anyone interested in advanced sound analysis.
Real-time
spectrogram analysis mode with high-quality spectrogram
and/or oscillogram running across the screen with simultaneous
recording of the signal on the hard disk!
Spectrogram,
Power spectrum, Zero-crossing, Pulse Interval and Pulse
length analyses from recorded sounds.
Supports any Windows
compatible sound card. No need for an expensive data
acquisition card.
Digital filtering
for improving sound quality of recorded sounds.
Printing or clipboard
export of diagrams.
Various cursors
for marking and coordinate measurements, text annotation etc.
Time expansion
factor to give the true time and frequency scaling in
signals from time expansion bat detectors.
Multiple windows
can be displayed at the same time to compare different signals or
analysis results.
Playback of sound
files with time position cursor.
True 32-bit
application for optimum performance. Runs under Windows 9x, ME, 2000 or XP.
The
Virtual Bat Detector mode plays time expanded sound files
as heard through a heterodyne bat detector.
User
defined spectrogram color mappings now available. Design
virtually any color mapping you wish!
Optional
grid lines in oscillograms and spectrograms.
Saving a bat call sequence in
the "BatSound Compressed" file format gives a
significant reduction of the file size.
The
"Pulse Characteristics Analysis"
command enables automatic
extraction of many important signal parameters, such as:
The Automatic
recording mode turns the computer into a versatile "voice
activated recorder", i.e. it starts recording to files as soon as the sound
level exceeds the chosen threshold level.
The Automatic Recording mode makes it possible to have the computer record sounds automatically. The desired threshold level is selected and the computer will start recording to a sound file as soon as the signal exceeds this level. Many parameters are available to fine-tune this mode, e.g. by setting limits for the minimum pulse length, total recording time, maximum number of pulses to record etc. Frequency-selective triggering is also available, to avoid recording undesired signals.
Sound file
editing
The sound file editing functions
include:
Cut, Copy, Paste, Insert silence, Reverse, Adjust volume, Filter
and Undo edit.
Using these, it is possible to enhance the sound file in many
ways, e.g. to remove undesired portions of a signal or to create
a new sound file by cutting and pasting sound clips from other
files.
The filter function enables frequency-selective editing of the
sound file. Removing e.g. low-frequency noise from a selected
portion of the sound file is an easy matter. The filter
characteristics are chosen in the "Filter design dialog
box", where it is also possible to study the frequency
response of the designed filter before actually filtering the
sound file.
The filter design parameters are:
Filter characteristic: Lowpass, Highpass, Bandpass, Bandstop
Filter type: Butterworth, Chebyshev I, Elliptic
Cut-off frequencies: User selected
Filter order: 2, 4, 6 or 8
Pulse Characteristics Analysis
The user selects the analysis criteria and the program automatically extracts many important signal parameters, such as:
The Virtual Bat Detector
In the Virtual Bat Detector mode, BatSound is used to replay the sound files (time expanded or recorded in the high-speed mode) from the hard disk as heard through a heterodyne bat detector. An on-screen tuning control is available to tune the Virtual Bat Detector to different frequencies. While the signal is being replayed, the spectrogram of the signal is displayed on the screen, making it easy to understand the connection between different sounds and their spectrograms.
This feature is very useful to learn to recognize the sounds of different bat species. The sounds can be repeated over and over again, to facilitate finding the specific characteristics of each species.
BatSound Pro - with high-speed sampling mode
The BatSound Pro software has all the functions of BatSound and also supports fast A/D cards enabling direct recording and playback of ultrasonic signals at sampling rates up to 500 kHz. The spectrogram is not shown in real time at these high sampling rates, but is displayed immediately after recording each sequence.
Most regular sound cards are able to sample signals only up to a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz, resulting in an effective maximum signal frequency of about 20 kHz. The High Speed Sampling mode supports the use of a few fast A/D cards (PCMCIA type II), enabling sampling frequencies up to 500 kHz (hardware dependent).
Since PCMCIA cards are supported, a laptop computer can be used. External switches are used to start and stop the high-speed recordings, so no access to the computer's keyboard or mouse is required. Hence the laptop can be operated with closed display, making a compact unit easy to carry in a bag or rucksack. After stopping each recording, the recorded signal is replayed at a slower speed, just like a time expansion bat detector.
All recorded sequences are kept available in BatSound Pro until manually closed, so after the recording session, you can go through the recordings, analyze them and decide which ones to store permanently on the hard disk.
The actual maximum sampling frequency and maximum recording time are hardware dependent, but typically a 266 MHz Pentium II computer with 64 MB RAM should be able to make recordings up about 50 seconds at a sampling rate of 300 kHz. Please note that, due to the large number of possible hardware and software configurations, these figures should only be considered examples of what has been achieved in our tests.
A signal interface module to connect between the sound source and the PCMCIA card, the F2000, is also available. It contains a switch to start/stop the recordings, an amplifier and an anti-aliasing filter, the cut-off frequency of which may be controlled from BatSound Pro. The gain of the amplifier is chosen to make the unit compatible with most of our bat detectors.
Please contact us at info@batsound.com if you have any questions about the high-speed sampling mode.
System requirements
(BatSound and BatSound Pro):
Pentium 166 MHz computer or better (Pentium
II or higher recommended)
RAM: 32 MB minimum (also depending on the operating system)
Graphics card/monitor with VGA resolution or better
Mouse
Windows compatible sound card
50 MB of free hard disk space (>500 MB recommended)
Windows 9x, ME, 2000 or XP operating system.
To use the high-speed sampling mode of BatSound
Pro, a PCMCIA type II slot and one of the supported high speed
A/D cards are required. The actual maximum sampling frequency and
maximum storage time in the high-speed sampling mode are hardware
dependent.
Windows, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000 and Windows XP are
registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
Pentium is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation.
If you have any questions about analysis software, please contact us at info@batsound.com.
Pettersson Elektronik AB
Dag Hammarskjolds v. 34A
S-751 83 UPPSALA
Sweden
Tel: +46 1830 3880 Fax: +46 1830 3840
info@batsound.com
