The SpeechMark Command Line Utility, Mac Edition

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SpeechMark Product: The SpeechMark Command Line Utility, Mac Edition
Operating Systems Supported: Mac OSX (Lion or Mountain Lion versions)
Product Version: 0.1.4
Public Release Date : April 7, 2013
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Installation Notes — PLEASE READ
===============================

    1. During operation, this SpeechMark product calls the MATLAB Compiler Runtime (MCR) product, a software module developed and released by The Mathworks. The installation process for this SpeechMark product searches the user’s file system. If it does NOT find an invocable copy of the MCR, it automatically downloads an MCR install image from the SpeechMark web site, and attempts to install it. Following MCR installation, the SpeechMark installation process guides the user to exit the install process, and begin the installation of this SpeechMark product a second time. Once the MCR has been successfully installed, the SpeechMark installation process should run to completion.
    2. We are currently requiring that Mac end users install the MCR in the default location, i.e. /Applications/Matlab/Matlab_Compiler_Runtime/v717/. Since Macs don’t have an analog of the Windows Path that is both readily accessible and reliable for installed software, we’re using this workaround until we come up with a more sophisticated solution. A better solution might be as simple as prompting the user for the MCR folder as part of the SpeechMark installation process.

 

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Bug Fixes:

    1. Help option “-?” changed to “-h”
    2. Examples directory, e.g. “/Users/[user]/Documents/SpeechMark_Example_Files” given write permission.
    3. MATLAB path bug fixed for BUILD script.

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Enhancements:
(None for this release)

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Known Bugs:

  1. The input waveform checksum that is supposed to be calculated and output in the landmark file header is not in fact calculated or output.

 

The SpeechMark Command Line Utility, Windows Edition

SpeechMark Product Release Notes

SpeechMark Product: The SpeechMark Command Line Utility, Windows Edition
Operating Systems Supported: Windows XP, Windows 7
Product Version: 1.1.2
Public Release Date : October 23, 2019

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Installation Notes–PLEASE READ
===============================

1) During operation, this SpeechMark product calls the MATLAB Compiler Runtime (MCR) product, a software module developed and released by The Mathworks. The installation process for this SpeechMark product searches the user’s file system. If it does NOT find an invocable copy of the MCR, it automatically downloads an MCR install image from the SpeechMark web site, and attempts to install it. Following MCR installation, the SpeechMark installation process guides the user to exit the install process, and begin the installation of this SpeechMark product a second time. Once the MCR has been successfully installed, the SpeechMark installation process should run to completion.

2) Both the SpeechMark and MCR installation processes MUST be run with administrative privileges. If the user’s account does not have administrative privileges active, The installation process must be invoked with administrative privileges. To do this, hold down the SHIFT key, and click on the installation icon or file name. Then select “Run as…” from the context menu that appears. Then enter the name and password of a user who has administrative privileges.

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Bug Fixes:
1) Workaround for MCR installation.
2) Resolve administrator privileges issues.
3) Resolved an issue when voicing continued past the end of the data
4) Resolved an issue where either voicing was very faint or only one landmark was found caused the results to be invalid

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Enhancements:

(None for this release)

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Known Bugs:
1) The input waveform checksum that is supposed to be calculated and output in the landmark file header is not in fact calculated or output.

2) When the user includes the “/g” option on the command line, there MUST be a space between the “/g” and the speaker type character (e.g., “M”). If no space is included, the option is silently ignored.

The SpeechMark R Package, Windows Edition

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SpeechMark Product: The SpeechMark R Package, Windows Edition
Operating Systems Supported: Windows XP, Windows 7
Product Version: 0.1.5
Public Release Date : February 7, 2014
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Installation Notes–PLEASE READ
===============================

  1. Verify that the MATLAB Compiler Runtime (“MCR”) 32 bit version 2013b (v82) has been installed on your computer. If it hasn’t, install this software first! The MCR install image can be downloaded from:http://www.mathworks.com/products/compiler/mcr/ See IMPORTANT MCR INSTALATION NOTES below.
  2. Verify that the 32 bit version of R has been installed on your computer (the latest version is R i386 3.0.2). The R install image can be downloaded from: http://www.r-project.org/
  3. Download the SpeechMark R Package install image from the SpeechMark web site. The install image is a zip file that contains installation instructions (basically, the text you are now reading) and another zip file named “SpeechMark.zip”. Extract these files from the download image.
  4. Install the SpeechMark R Package in your R environment by launching the R GUI, and clicking on the “Packages” menu on the menu bar. Select the “Install package from local zip file…” menu option. A “Select files” window will appear. Use it to find and select the SpeechMark.zip file that you extracted in the previous step.
  5. Load the SpeechMark R Package by clicking on the “Packages” menu again on the R Menu bar. This time select the “Load package …” menu option, and select the “SpeechMark” package from the list of installed packages that appears.
  6. You can view the SpeechMark Package documentation by typing the command “help(package=’SpeechMark’)” at the command line prompt in the R Console Window.

IMPORTANT MCR INSTALLATION NOTES
================================
Many of our users install the MATLAB Compiler Runtime without encountering any problems. Others are not so fortunate. These notes are intended to shed some light on potential MCR Installation issues and problems. Ideally you’ll read and comprehend these notes before attempting the MCR installation the first time. But at the very least, please read them over if you experience any problems.
For many users of the SpeechMark R Package who do run into trouble, their first hint that something has gone wrong is an error message when they attempt to LOAD the SpeechMark R Package. This is because a working MCR is not needed in order to install R or install the SpeechMark R Package, but it is needed in order to load that package. If Step 5 above fails, you need to read these instructions. Usually, when Step 5 fails, R displays an error box with a message like this:

    “This application has failed to start because mclmcrrt8_2.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.”

If you see this message, help is on the way. Keep reading!

  1. The SpeechMark R Package uses compiled MATLAB code. So may other applications you have installed. A number of different versions of the MCR are available from the MATLAB web site. In order to run this code, you need to install on your computer the *particular* version of the MCR required by the code. In order to run this package, you must download and install the MCR version that this package needs, even if you have installed other versions of the MCR required by other applications. You can have multiple versions of the MCR installed and in use on your computer simultaneously.
  2. The SpeechMark R Package requires the MATLAB Compiler Runtime (“MCR”) 32 bit version 2013b (v82). Other versions of the MCR will not work. Follow the link provided in Step 1 above, and be careful to choose, download, and install the correct version.
  3. It is not sufficient to install the correct version of the MCR–your PATH environment variable must also be updated to include the directory in which the MCR DLL is located. Some users find that the MCR installation process updates their PATH variable automatically. Other users find that they must update their PATH variable by hand.
  4. The directory (folder) that must appear in your PATH is the folder in which the MCR DLL file “mclmcrrt8_2.dll” resides. This should be a subfolder under the folder that you installed the MCR in, and by default ends with “…\v82\runtime\win32”. If necessary, you can find this folder by using the Windows Explorer Search function. Search for the file “mclmcrrt8_2.dll”.
  5. The filespec of this folder must be added to the PATH environment variable, either by the MCR install process or by you, manually. To check to see if this folder has been added to PATH by the MCR install process, open a Windows Command Window, and type “Path” and press Enter. The current PATH environment variable will be printed out.
  6. If the MCR DLL folder has not been added to the path, you must add it manually. Press the Start button, select the Control Panel, click on the System icon, select the Advanced tab, click on the Environment Variables button, and edit the System Variable named “path”.
  7. If you do not have the full MATLAB application installed (that is, if you are not a MATLAB user), append the MCR DLL directory to the end of your PATH string, separated by a “;” character from the previous folders. If you do have the MATLAB application installed, you must insert the MCR DLL before any of the MATLAB application directories that appear in the PATH string. Separate the MCR DLL from the other folders with “;” characters.
  8. For the revised PATH string to be visible to R, a new R GUI must be launched *after* the PATH variable has been updated and saved.

Please read the MCR Installer Documentation, available from the MATLAB web site by going to the URL shown in Step 1, and looking for the “MCCR Installer Documentation” link.

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Bug Fixes:
None

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Enhancements:
Renamed the package from “starlm” to “SpeechMark”

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Known Bugs:
None

The SpeechMark WaveSurfer Plug-In, Mac Edition

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SpeechMark Product: The SpeechMark WaveSurfer Plug-In, Mac Edition
Product Version: 0.1.23
Public Release Date : January 14, 2013
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Installation Notes — PLEASE READ
===============================

    1. During operation, this SpeechMark product calls the MATLAB Compiler Runtime (MCR) product, a software module developed and released by The Mathworks. The installation process for this SpeechMark product searches the user’s file system. If it does NOT find an invocable copy of the MCR, it automatically downloads an MCR install image from the SpeechMark web site, and attempts to install it. Following MCR installation, the SpeechMark installation process guides the user to exit the install process, and begin the installation of this SpeechMark product a second time. Once the MCR has been successfully installed, the SpeechMark installation process should run to completion.

 

    1. We are currently requiring that Mac end users install the MCR in the default location, i.e. /Applications/Matlab/Matlab_Compiler_Runtime/v84/. Since Macs don’t have an analog of the Windows Path that is both readily accessible and reliable for installed software, we’re using this workaround until we come up with a more sophisticated solution. A better solution might be as simple as prompting the user for the MCR folder as part of the SpeechMark installation process.

 

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Bug Fixes:

    1. We eliminated the excessive plotting time previously required for “Band Energies” plot.

 

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Enhancements:

    1. We now display MATLAB and MATLAB conversion layer errors in the command window.
    2. We now provide helpful feedback when an attempt is made to find acoustic landmarks in multi-channel signals. (The SpeechMark WaveSurfer Plugin only handles single channel data.)
    3. We now provide helpful feedback when an attempt is made to find acoustic landmarks in a signal larger that 10MB (~5 minutes at 16 bit, 16kHz sampling rate). (This is the upper limit on the size of signal files that The SpeechMark WaveSurfer Plugin can handle.)
    4. The User can customize the display of landmark “flags” via the “Landmark Configuration” popup window.
    5. Custom landmark “flag” display settings can be saved and applied via configuration files, e.g. “Save Configuration” and “Apply Configuration”.
    6. Frequency band information is now displayed as labels on the Band Energy plots.
    7. Landmark “flags” automatically resize when the landmark pane is resized.

 

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Known Bugs:

  1. During installation, if the MCR has just been downloaded and installed, system path to MCR may not be updated, and installer will abort (cleanly). WORKAROUND: Rerun installer.
  2. Configuration files should not be saved while Band Energy panes are open. Configurations saved with Band Energy panes open will produce blank panes upon application.

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The SpeechMark WaveSurfer Plug-In, Windows Edition

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SpeechMark WaveSurfer Plugin, Windows Edition

Version: 1.0.39
Internal Release Date : 2019/10/23

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Bug Fixes:
1) syllable clustering was sometimes defective when a cluster boundary was close to +-p or +-j landmarks.

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Enhancements:
1) syllable clustering now uses full rules for +-v (voiced-frication) landmarks equivalent to the existing rules for +-s.
2) Resolved an issue when voicing continued past the end of the data
3) Resolved an issue where either voicing was very faint or only one landmark was found caused the results to be invalid

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Known Bugs:
1) During installation, if the MCR has just been downloaded and installed, system
path to MCR may not be updated, and installer will abort (cleanly).
WORKAROUND: Rerun installer.
2) Conflicts occur when 64-bit Matlab 2012a and the Matlab Compiler are installed
before the 32-bit MCR 7.14.
3) Configuration files should not be saved while Band Energy panes are open.
Configurations saved with Band Energy panes open will produce blank panes upon
application.
4) F0-jump landmarks do not display, even if present in an existing landmarks (.lm)
file.

The SpeechMark MATLAB Toolbox, Cross-Platform Edition

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SpeechMark Product: The SpeechMark MATLAB Toolbox, Cross-Platform Edition
Operating Systems Supported: Windows XP, Windows 7, OS X Version 10.7 (“Lion”), OS X Version 10.8 (“Mountain Lion”)
Product Version: 0.1.8
Public Release Date : February 28, 2014
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Installation Notes–PLEASE READ
===============================

  1. This product is a standard MATLAB toolbox. To use it, a valid instance of MATLAB (version R2010b or newer) must be installed, as well as a valid version of the MATLAB Signal Processing Toolbox.

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Bug Fixes:
N/A
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Enhancements:

  1. Periodic voicing landmarks (+/-p) added.
  2. Function returning SpeechMark Core version and date added.
  3. MATLAB inbuilt ‘ver’ command compatible Contents.m file added.

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Known Bugs:
None

The SpeechMark Command Line Utility, Mac Edition

The SpeechMark family of products detects and measures acoustic landmarks —acoustic events that correlate with changes in speech articulation. Landmarks are useful for investigating non-lexical attributes of speech, such as differences in production of the same speech material by the same speaker under different conditions.

The SpeechMark Command Line Utility, Mac Edition is a version of the SpeechMark technology that is callable from an OS X terminal window. The utility is a command line program named spmark, which processes a wave file containing recorded speech, detects acoustic landmarks in the recorded speech, and outputs a text-format “landmark file” with information about the detected landmarks.

The text output of the SpeechMark Command Line Utility can be imported into other programs. This utility is well-suited for batch processing, as no user interaction is required when the program is running. The Utility is designed to be easily integrated by the end user into most third-party speech processing systems.

The SpeechMark Command Line Utility is primarily suited to the following uses:

  • Processing large amount of audio, and/or many audio files, in “batch mode”;
  • Adding landmark detection capabilities to any speech analysis system that is not directly supported by other SpeechMark products.

 

Features

The SpeechMark Command Line Utility:

  • Analyzes a speech file in order to detect and identify the location of acoustic landmarks (See How are Acoustic Landmarks Detected?)
    • All SpeechMark products generate a landmark file (“.lm”), which is a text file that contains one line of information for each generated landmark. That line contains a timestamp, the label of the landmark, and a numerical “strength” value;
      An example of the first few lines from a .lm file is shown below.

 

Examples

The following figure shows two invocations of spmark:

  1. The first invocation shows how the “-h” option is used to print help describing the program’s command line syntax;
  2. The second invocation highlights the specification of one input filename as a required argument on the command line. The specified file is the .WAV file that contains the speech in which landmarks are to be found.

 

System Requirements

  • OS X (Lion or Mountain Lion version);
  • the MATLAB Compiler Runtime (MCR) object. This third-party software is installed automatically during the SpeechMark installation process if it is not already present on the user’s system and runnable.

 

Downloads

  • Click here to download this SpeechMark product.

LMFile

Figure 1: The header and first six data lines of a SpeechMark “.lm” file. Among other information, the header includes the name and version number of the landmark product that generated the file; and the identifier of the waveform that was processed. Each data line includes a timestamp, a landmark type code, and a “strength” value.

Figure 2: The first call to spmark shows the /? help option. The second call to spmark shows an example in which spx2.wav is the input speech file and the /g option indicates that the speaker is an adult female.CmdLine-h

The SpeechMark Command Line Utility, Windows Edition

The SpeechMark family of products detects and measures acoustic landmarks —acoustic events that correlate with changes in speech articulation. Landmarks are useful for investigating non-lexical attributes of speech, such as differences in production of the same speech material by the same speaker under different conditions.

The SpeechMark Command Line Utility, Windows Edition is a version of the SpeechMark technology that is callable from a Windows command window. The utility is a command line program named spmark.exe, which processes a wave file containing recorded speech, detects acoustic landmarks in the recorded speech, and outputs a text-format “landmark file” with information about the detected landmarks.

CmdLine2Features

The text output of the SpeechMark Command Line Utility can be imported into other programs. This utility is well-suited for batch processing, as no user interaction is required when the program is running. The Utility is designed to be easily integrated by the end user into most third-party speech processing systems.

The SpeechMark Command Line Utility is primarily suited to the following uses:

 

    • All SpeechMark products generate a landmark file (“.lm”), which is a text file that contains one line of information for each generated landmark. That line contains a timestamp, the label of the landmark, and a numerical “strength” value; An example of the first few lines from a .lm file is shown below.

 

Examples

CmdLineThe following figure shows two invocations of spmark.exe:

  1. The first invocation shows how the “/?” option is used to print help describing the program’s command line syntax;
  2. The second invocation highlights the specification of one input filename as a required argument on the command line. The specified file is the .WAV file that contains the speech in which landmarks are to be found.

 

System Requirements

  • Windows XP or Windows 7;
  • The MATLAB Compiler Runtime (MCR) object. This third-party software is installed automatically if it is not found on the user’s system by the SpeechMark installation process.

Downloads Click here to download this SpeechMark product.

 

SpeechMark R Package, Windows Edition

The SpeechMark R Package is now unsupported, and its use is deprecated. However, we invite anyone who is seriously interested in this Package to communicate with us and discuss their interest and needs.

The SpeechMark family of products detects and measures acoustic landmarks —acoustic events that correlate with changes in speech articulation. Landmarks are useful for investigating non-lexical attributes of speech, such as differences in production of the same speech material by the same speaker under different conditions.

The SpeechMark R Package for Windows adds landmark support to the R software environment for statistical computing and graphics.

RPackage1Features

The R Package:

    • Analyzes speech files to detect and identify the location of acoustic landmarks
    • Displays the location of acoustic landmarks.
      • Landmark labels are superimposed on the audio signal waveform.

 

    • Computes a Vowel Space Plot for detected vowel landmarks.
      • In the Vowel Space Plot, SpeechMark plots the (F1, F2) positions of detected vowel landmarks.

 

      • In addition, as a visual guide, SpeechMark also draws a polygon (dashed blue line) showing the approximate range of the adult vowel space. That is, the polygon shows accepted values of the adult vowel space, (not boundaries derived from the vowels being plotted).

RPackage2

    • Calculates the number of syllables, the number of utterances and the number of landmarks in syllables and utterances.
    • Saves and Loads landmarks data to disk.

 

System Requirements

  • Windows XP or Windows 7
  • The latest release of R Software Environment.
  • The MATLAB Compiler Runtime object.

 

Downloads

  • Click here to download this SpeechMark product.

SpeechMark WaveSurfer Plug-in, Mac Edition

The SpeechMark family of products detects and measures acoustic landmarks —acoustic events that correlate with changes in speech articulation. Landmarks are useful for investigating non-lexical attributes of speech, such as differences in production of the same speech material by the same speaker under different conditions.

The SpeechMark WaveSurfer Plug-in, Mac Edition adds landmark support to the WaveSurfer speech analysis package.

Features

The SpeechMark Plug-in:

    • Analyzes speech files to detect and identify the location of acoustic landmarks
    • Displays the location of acoustic landmarks on a pane within WaveSurfer
      • Landmark labels are superimposed on the audio signal waveform

WSPlug-in 1

    • Displays power contours in selected frequency bands that are used to identify acoustic landmarks

WSPlug-in 3

    • Supports user preferences for landmark configuration
      • As shown in Figure 3, the set of landmarks to be displayed and output can be modified by the user

WSPlug-in 4

    • Generates output files which specify the location (time) and type of the detected landmarks
      • All versions of SpeechMark generate a landmark file (“.lm” file—see Figure 4). A landmark files is a text file that contains one line of information for each generated landmark. That line contains a timestamp, the label of the landmark, and a numerical “strength” value;

WSPlug-in 2

      • The SpeechMark Plug-in also generates a WaveSurfer “lab.lab” file which represents acoustic landmarks as standard WaveSurfer labels. The user can open this landmark label file in WaveSurfer to use these landmarks as standard WaveSurfer transcription labels.

 

    • WSPlug-in 5Computes a Vowel Space Plot for detected vowel landmarks
      • In the Vowel Space Plot, SpeechMark plots the (F1, F2) positions of detected vowel landmarks.
      • Vowels with unusually high formant bandwidth are plotted in green, the rest are plotted in red.
      • In addition, as a visual guide, SpeechMark also draws a polygon (dashed blue line) showing the approximate range of the adult vowel space. That is, the polygon shows accepted values of the adult vowel space, (not boundaries derived from the vowels being plotted).

 

 

System Requirements

  • Mac OS X (Lion or Mountain Lion version);
  • The latest release of WaveSurfer that can be downloaded
    from the sourceforge.net web site (currently version 1.8.8p4) or WaveSurfer 1.8.5;
  • The MATLAB Compiler Runtime object (which is normally downloaded and installed automatically as part of the SpeechMark product installation process).

 

Downloads

  • Click here to download this SpeechMark product.