Sound Finder / Silence Finder improvements

[PGA]

@Steve, @Gale,
Would there be any advantage, either now or at some point in the (near?) future, in my offering my services as a “beta tester” for these plug-ins? I’m aware of some of the discussions that have taken place between the pair of you, but have not tried to follow all the details. I believe I would, in reality, be coming at these tools with no previous “baggage” to cloud my judgement or influence my thinking. There’s just one small problem: the only media that I have is all CD. Somebody would have to provide me with, say, the digital file from a transcribed LP and/or a transcribed cassette for me to play with.
As always from me… just a thought!
Peter

[steve]

Thank you very much for the offer Peter.
As a general point, beta testers for plug-ins are always extremely welcome.
With regard to these particular plug-ins there will be a need for beta testing before release of any new versions but I don’t think that we are quite at that stage yet.

If you’d like to do some beta testing now, there are two new plug-ins that are currently waiting for testing before being uploaded to the wiki download pages:
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/shelf-filter/24512/1
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/turntable-warping-v3/24650/1

[Gale_Andrews]

@steve

@Gale Andrews

I am not very clear why the first grouped label in your image doesn’t end at about 2 mins.

The first sound starts after few seconds.
It is less than 2 minutes, so the next sound is added to the group.
It is still less than 2 minutes so the next sound is added to the group.
…
At the 2 minute mark the “group length” is just under 2 minutes duration, so the next sound is added.
The next sound is about 10 seconds duration bringing the total group length to about 2:08
As the group length is now greater than the required 2 minute minimum, the next sound starts a new label.

Should your reference above to “if a detected sound is less than 1 minute then it will be “grouped” with the next sound” have read “2 minutes” ?

@steve

@Gale Andrews

I agree that if the underlength final label is needed, that would rule out “Minimum label length”. In that case I would be happier with “Combine sounds shorter than:” (you mention “combine” in your docs). That doesn’t imply quite so strongly that the labels are going to be strung together inside another label. Still better IMO would be “Make one label for sounds shorter than:”. It would extend the width by a couple of characters if no other wording changed.

What if all of the sounds are less than this value? Doesn’t “Make one label for sounds shorter than:” imply that all of the sounds will be grouped into one label? That’s not not what happens. The sounds are only combined up to the specified “group size”.

I don’t see that “Group sounds that are less than:” avoids that objection except in so far as it’s vaguer so is open to more interpretations. Both ideas miss the explicit “up to”.

“Minimum label length” seems more likely to me to be interpreted as what we mean (except for the problem with the last label, but that is not I suppose an insurmountable objection). Does “Group short sounds until at least:”, “Group short sounds to minimum:” or similar help? Can you remind me of the other reasons why you now don’t like “Minimum label length”? To me it says all this with much less potential for confusion. I don’t care if the effect does what you are describing to make the label. I care about describing the end result the user sees.

@steve

(If after the final full 2 minutes there are, say, 3 sounds of 10 seconds each with 2 second gaps between, they will form the final group of 34 seconds duration. The final group is less than 2 minutes because we have run out of sounds.)

Is that more useful than completing a label even if it is rather longer than the length specified?


Gale

[Gale_Andrews]

@steve

@Gale Andrews

“Label position” (after all those verbs above it) looks as if you might be “labelling a position” instead of “positioning a label”.

Is “Label placement” better?

Yes +1. It matches with current Silence Finder and Regular Interval Labels.



Gale

[Gale_Andrews]

A lot hinges on my perception that new users will struggle both with sound regions and with the concept of splitting songs by labelling the songs. If you have songs separated by silence then it is easy to understand that you can split the songs by making a single chop in the silence. This is proved - it creates almost no issues for users; the main issue it creates has a well documented workaround (include audio before first label).

I think that labelling sound regions is sufficiently complex for new users (in concept and effect on the interface if combined with point labels) that there is probably no point putting it in a “simple” plug-in. That leaves a problem that an “advanced” plug-in may still be too complex for people of only average ability; and the suggestion that point labels are preferable for users even when marking sounds. I still see these as much lesser problems than putting sound regions into Silence Finder.

I understand that “minimum distance” may be difficult to code in the current Silence Finder and I think I am getting the impression that it may be easier to start over with a “simple effect” than patch up Silence Finder? In that case probably you should start over because I think “Groups” in Sound Finder is likely to be harder to understand in amongst all its features than putting it into a Silence Finder that places labels in silence.

@steve

The only thing that is missing in Sound Finder that is available in Silence Finder is the ability to use point labels and that is easily added with a single user option. If this change is too much of a shock for some users, is there some way that we can lessen the shock?

I think most users who are not intimidated by labelling sounds rather than silence will cope OK with point labels in Sound Finder. I don’t think it is an important option (people who want point labels will probably prefer Silence Finder; people who are comfortable with sound regions will find it easier to actually label the region) but I would like it in if there is vertical room. My strong concern is that I don’t want a point label option to be default in Sound Finder.

All this still seems to be coming round to having

@steve

Silence Finder (I prefer the name “Silence Marker” or “Label Silences”):
bug fixed
mark silences (no exceptions)
Minimum distance between labels (default 0 seconds)

Sound Finder:
bug fixed
marks sounds with region labels by default but with an option for point labels.

Advanced Sound Finder:
A downloadable plug-in on the wiki

I concur with all of that, though I am not quite convinced Sound Finder will be so complex that it requires splitting into “simple” and “advanced”. If we can have minimum distance in Silence Finder then most novice to average users will probably not need to concern themselves with Sound Finder. Most who want to trim the silences on an album will probably be more comfortable doing it manually than using Sound Finder.

So in terms of the number of users it will help, the first task is probably to get a bug fixed Silence Finder out (specification above).

I too think there is a (fairly small) group who want a “simple” Sound Finder not much more complex than now, but I think trying to accommodate them by good design in a revamped Sound Finder will be easier and much less risk than trying to make an easily intelligible “Silence Finder” that is presented as marking points close to sounds and also offers sound regions.

I also see a group who find the current Sound Finder as underpowered and inflexible so I think it would be better to give them a shipped effect if it can be done.



Gale

[steve]

@Gale Andrews

Yes +1. It matches with current Silence Finder and Regular Interval Labels.

Done.

@Gale Andrews

Should your reference above to “if a detected sound is less than 1 minute then it will be “grouped” with the next sound” have read “2 minutes” ?

Oops, yes (typo). I’ll change that for the benefit of other readers. Does that make sense now?

@Gale Andrews

Does “Group short sounds until at least:”, “Group short sounds to minimum:” or similar help?

I was thinking that these may be an improvement, but there is a problem.
The grouping occurs because the individual sounds are “too short”, so they are grouped together up to a certain size (until the “group size” is big enough to start a new label). In the final group, the sounds are grouped together in the same way as all other groups - sounds are added together because the combined sized is less than the specified group size. If the combined size reaches the specified size then a new label will be started. (more about the final group at end of post).

If this was a hardware device I’d just call it “Sound Group” and explain in the manual. The concept of “combining short sounds together into groups” is the simplest way that I can think of to describe the feature but I’m open to other ideas.

@Gale Andrews

Can you remind me of the other reasons why you now don’t like “Minimum label length”?

The term “label length” does not really make sense for point labels and it conveys the wrong idea when marking silent regions.

As previously described, this effect detects “sounds”. When silent regions are marked it is the spaces (silent gaps) between the sounds. We are not grouping the silences, we are still grouping (if necessary) the sounds. Grouping the sounds together makes larger “sound groups”, so there will be “less” silences marked. The duration of the marked silences is not affected, just the number of silences.

@Gale Andrews

@steve

(If after the final full 2 minutes there are, say, 3 sounds of 10 seconds each with 2 second gaps between, they will form the final group of 34 seconds duration. The final group is less than 2 minutes because we have run out of sounds.)

Is that more useful than completing a label even if it is rather longer than the length specified?

It’s a lot less difficult to implement
One approach would be to consider the length of the final (separate) group compared to the length of extending the penultimate group, then decide according to which is closest to the target group size.

Extending the penultimate group could be quite bad in some cases. For example, if a lecture./audio book is being split to fit onto CDs, then ideally the splits should occur at around about an hour. If the final group is say 20 minutes then “logically” 80 minutes is much closer to the target than 20 minutes, but will not fit onto a standard 74 minute CD.

[steve]

@Gale Andrews

I don’t care if the effect does what you are describing to make the label. I care about describing the end result the user sees.

How about
“Combine sounds up to: … min:seconds”