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Praat is a carefully created software solution aimed at those who want to analyze, synthesize and manipulate speech. Moreover, with this tool you can generate high quality images which you can export and insert into scientific papers or personal studies. To create a short list of what this implies, Praat enables you to perform spectral, pitch, formant and intensity analysis, as well as study jitter, shimmer and voice breaks. A spectrogram that is associated with a loaded audio file is displayed in an editor and it’s from there that you can access the tools needed to perform the aforementioned analysis types. Though the interface design is rudimentary, Praat gains in the fact that it is purpose orientated, meaning that a feature is not made to look good but function properly and deliver accurate results. Praat (also the Dutch word for "talk") is a free scientific software program for the analysis of speech in phonetics. It has been designed and continuously developed by Paul Boersma and David Weenink of the University of Amsterdam. It can run on a wide range of operating systems, including various Unix versions, Mac and Microsoft Windows. The program also supports speech synthesis, including articulatory synthesis. Apart from this, you can also convert a track to mono or stereo, extract all its channels or a single one and resample it with a different frequency.

FEATURES:

Speech analysis:
· spectral analysis (spectrograms)
· pitch analysis
· formant analysis
· intensity analysis
· jitter, shimmer, voice breaks
· cochleagram
· excitation pattern
Speech synthesis:
· from pitch, formant, and intensity
· articulatory synthesis
Listening experiments:
· identification and discrimination tests
Labelling and segmentation:
· label intervals and time points on multiple tiers
· use phonetic alphabet
· use sound files up to 2 gigabytes (3 hours)
Speech manipulation:
· change pitch and duration contours
· filtering
Learning algorithms:
· feedforward neural networks
· discrete and stochastic Optimality Theory
Statistics:
· multidimensional scaling
· principal component analysis
· discriminant analysis
Graphics:
· high quality for your articles and thesis
· produce Encapsulated PostScript files
· integrated mathematical and phonetic symbols
Programmability:
· easy programmable scripting language
· communicate with other programs
· (the sendpraat source code)
· create hypertext manuals with sound I/O
Portability:
· machine-independent binary files
· read and write many sound and other file types
Configurability:
· grow or shrink menus
· save prefs for fonts, views, sound devices.