Praat is a powerful tool to do voice analysis, among others. It is opensource, free and is constantly being updated. Is has been successfully validated and gives us similar results to other commercial options. The interface is not very user-friendly and requires some learning. Beyond the integrated features, others can be added through scripts developed by researchers from all over the world. Latest version of Praat can be downloaded here.
This tutorial is to voice clinicians and researchers and it doesn’t requires any knowledge about programming or other advanced skills about informatics.
This post aims to get together some useful scripts and to teach how to use them.
Dysphonia Severity Index (DSI)
This index was developed by Prof Florian Wuyts among other researchers in 2000. Recently, a paper was published about how to measure DSI through Praat – Maryn, Morsomme and De Bodt, 2017. To use this script, please donwload this text file. Steps:
- Open Praat
- You have to record three different files: phonation as high as possible (rename to ‘fh’); phonation as soft as possible (rename to ‘il’); at least three seconds of a sustained vowel (rename to ‘ppt’)
- Click “File” or “Praat” on the top bar
- “Open Praat script…”
- Find and open the downloaded text file
- Click “Run”
- Read carefully the information and insert the asked data – such as maximum phonation type; calibration factor if needed; other data
- Click ‘Ok’
- The results are shown in ‘Praat picture’
Praat Vocal Toolkit
http://www.praatvocaltoolkit.com
A list with other scripts can be found in:
Other useful informations and How To’s can be found in Matt Winn website.