Syrinx Quick Tips:

 

What is it: Syrinx is a Windows 98/2000/XP sound recording/editing/playback program designed specifically for field and lab research in animal acoustic communication.

 

How to get it: email me, John Burt, (quill@u.washington.edu), with "Syrinx request" in the subject line. If you recommend Syrinx to someone else, tell them to go to www.syrinxpc.com.

 

How to Install it: download the install file and run the installer. Syrinx will be put in a folder in Program Files, with a quick-launch icon on the desktop.

 

Help: You can always email me a question, but first, try reading the built-in help (Help menu, Help Topics). This can be accessed by the Help menu, and also most of the dialogs have a help button.

 

Viewing sounds:

 

Run Syrinx

 

Open any WAV or AIF file (File menu, Open). You can also drag sound files into Syrinx to open them. Syrinx currently only supports WAV and AIF files - it does not support MP3.

 

You should see a spectrograph (time/frequency representation) of the sound.

 

Open the Window Settings dialog to change how the sound is displayed, click the  toolbar button or go to Options menu, Window Settings  (you can also reach this dialog by right-clicking on a window, or pressing Ctrl-W).  Click the Help button for help.

 

To view the sound’s waveform click the  toolbar button, or select View menu, As Waveform. 

Press  to switch back to the spectrograph view.

 

 stretches the timescale,  contracts it, and  makes the sound fit within the window.

 

  makes the spectrograph darker, and  makes it lighter (this changes does not affect the sound itself)

 

You can display many sound files at once - just open or drag more sounds into Syrinx. This is called a "display", and Syrinx lets you print or save an entire display for later recall. Notice that Syrinx will show newly opened sounds using the previous window’s display settings.

 

 

Playing sounds:

 

Double-click on a sound to play it. You can also play sounds by pressing the "P" key or the  toolbar button.

 

To play part of a sound, select the part with the time cursors and press Shift-C.

 

To play a sound in a loop, press Shift-L (see also Options menu, Loop Playback Mode Settings).

 

Recording sounds:

 

Open a new window (File menu, New)

 

Press "R" or the  toolbar button to start recording.  You should see a scrolling spectrograph display. During recording, sounds are stored into a temporary memory buffer. The memory buffer has a fixed size, which you can set (20 seconds by default).

 

The toolbar button, or spacebar, pauses recording and shows you what’s in the current recording buffer. Press the button again to resume recording.

 

Press "S"  or the  toolbar button to store sounds in the buffer to a temporary file. Only the most recent sounds will be stored.

 

The  toolbar button or the Escape key cancels recording and also stops playback.

 

To change recording settings, click the  toolbar button or select Options menu, Recording settings. Here, you can change the sample rate, buffer size, and many other recording features. Click the Help button for help.

 

Measuring sounds:

 

Use the mouse in a displayed sound to drag a time/frequency box. The Status bar below the Syrinx main window will show the cursor’s time and frequency values.

 

You can store cursor measurements to a text file by turning on logging in the Log File Menu

 

 

Other features:

 

The Edit and Tools menus contain many basic editing functions, such as cut/copy/paste, filtering, and maximizing sounds.

 

Syrinx can annotate sounds by placing a time/frequency box with comment on selected features in a sound. The annotation file created is a text file that can be imported into other programs (stats software, Excel, etc). This feature is particularly useful for long recordings. See Tools menu, Annotation, and Help topic "Annotating spectrographs".

 

Syrinx has a semi-automated system for field and lab playbacks. See the Playback menu, and Help topic "Playback Trial menu".

 

A configurable sound detector that automatically detects and stores sounds (see Help Topic "Using the sound detector").

 

Configurable auto-file naming generates file names with date and time information when recorded sounds are stored (either manually, or with the detector). See help topic "Set up Syrinx to automatically name sound files".

 

There are many more features! I suggest you just explore the program, and help topics, and email me if you have any questions.