Sound Finder / Silence Finder improvements

[Gale_Andrews]

@steve

@Gale Andrews

I have a feeling that a “region labels for silences” option would be more useful in Silence Finder than Sound Finder (even at the risk of slightly complicating Silence Finder). I think it would be easier to understand than having a “Simple Silence and Sound Finder” that had point labels for silence and either point or region labels for sound.

How would you feel about having a slightly more complex “Silence Finder” and a simpler “Sound Finder” and an “Advanced Sound Finder”? I think this may alleviate some fears about this plug-in being too complicated. Also a simplified Sound Finder may be better for novice users.
I don’t see the need for an “Advanced Silence Finder” as I can’t think of any user cases for such, however I can see some fringe user cases for alternative types of labels in an “Advanced Sound Finder”

I agree with what I take as your comment here that we don’t need two Sound Finders. I have never liked the similarity of Silence Finder and Sound Finder, and suspect that few novices use Sound Finder given most documentation bundled with turntables and cassette decks will only mention Silence Finder. So I would think we could bring the current “Sound Finder” to the end of the line with your bug fix and see if we can get (Advanced) Sound Finder to replace it in Audacity.

@steve

The end point control is very useful for preserving the tail end of a fade out. It could be useful to allow a greater range for this control, perhaps up to 10 seconds?

It is often useful to leave a short gap before the start of a track as some players will fail to play the first fraction of a second…

OK, good points. Though I don’t think the end point default should be set to assume fade outs.

@steve

@Gale Andrews

I think the inter-relationship between “Allow” and “Disregard” in affecting the result is what will bamboozle people the most,

I can see what you mean, but after much consideration I think those terms fit most accurately with what the plug-in actually does.
Short gaps that are within a sound can be “allowed”. (not recognized as a valid gap).

Is this the same as the erstwhile “Minimum duration of silence between sounds”? Someone who e-mailed me was having a lot of trouble with “allowing” something “less than”, but less trouble with ignoring “less than”.

@steve

Short sounds that are isolated within a period of silence can be “disregarded”. (not recognized as a valid sound).

Any reason not to use “Ignore”? It’s shorter too. I am not sure I like “isolated” either ; it may confuse people who are not thinking exactly on your wavelength. Does isolated mean any more than “between recognised sounds”?

@steve

@Gale Andrews

As an aside, if Nyquist supported a separate panel for the detection and labels controls I think the advanced effect would “look” less intimidating.

Yes that would be nice. In fact it could be easily split into 3 “tabs”. Tab 1: Sound detection. Tab 2:Label placement. Tab 3: Label text options.

Added at Nyquist Wish List - #13 by Gale_Andrews .

PS I think incremental numbering as plug-ins are developed would save confusion.



Gale