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Sampling Short Sequences From Long MP3 Recordings?

mehl writes "I am a professor for social psychology at the University of Arizona and I am looking for help with finding / developing a special program. In my research, I ask participants to carry around a digital voice recorder while they go about their normal lives. The voice recorder then tracks the ambient sounds in their environments and produces an 'acoustic log' of a person's day. We then use these ambient sound recordings as source data for various person perception studies. For privacy reasons, we are required to sample brief snippets of ambient sounds instead of recording an entire day continuously ('Big Brother is listening to you...'). So far, we have achieved this by modifying the hardware of a digital voice recorder (triggering it with an external microchip). With the high turn-over in player models, however, this strategy has turned out to be short-sighted (every half a year we have to build a new chip). I am thinking about switching strategy, recording continuously in the first place (no problem with the current generation of flash memory) and then sampling (random) snippets after the fact from the continous recordings. Does anybody know of an existing program that can randomly (or pseudo-randomly; e.g., 30 sec every 10 min) and automatically sample short sequences from a day-long (18 hours) mp3 recording? What would it entail to develop such a program (for Windows)?."

7 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. Simple... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny


    Pick up Microsoft Visual C++ then look at their time and sound librar.. uh.. oh.. IT colour scheme hurt brain... cannot continue.. blarerhfdsl jjjjjjjjjjjjjj fjwkef

  2. Easy... by xsupergr0verx · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ask P-Diddy.

    He frequently samples other artists' work and then makes millions. Reminds me of an archived Onion article, which you now must pay for

    --

    Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
  3. Re:Audacity? by krog · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think what this guy is looking for is a CS student who will write it for him. This is how academia works.

  4. Re:Privacy concerns... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    It would be pretty embarrasing to have to explain this:
    Voice1: Yeah, I'm the director. I can get you a part.
    Voice2: Really?! This is so exciting!
    Voice1: Of course, you'll need to auditi--
    [snip]
    Voice1: eah baby, suck it. Oh yeah!
    Voice2: Mmmmmffff!
    Voice1: Oh yeah! Oh yes! God yess!!!
    Voice2: Mmmmfff! Mmmf mm!
    Voice1: Yes! Yes! I'm cu--
    [snip]
    Voice1: --s the best ever. Now it's your turn.
    Voice2: Oh, I like a man who returns the favor..
    Voice1: Hey, what's this.. WHAT THE FUCK!?! HOLY SHIT! YOU'RE A GU--
    [snip]
    Voice3: I can't believe you fell for that!
    Voice4: We all knew. Are you fucking blind?
    Voice3: Hahh! hah! ha!
    Voice1: SHUT UP!!
    Voice2: I thought you knew.
    Voice1: Fuck you, dude!!
    Voice3: Did he tell you he's a director?
    Voice2: Yeah, does this mean I'm not getting the part?
    Voice3: HA!! ha ha ha!!
    Voice2: What's so funny?
    Voice4: Dude, he works in a seven ele--
    [snip]
    Voice1: --unches like a guy.
    Voice3: HA!! HA HA!!
  5. Re:Java? Python? PERL? by revscat · · Score: 5, Funny

    Me: In any case I couldn't imagine that it'd take more than half a day or so to do this in Java or Python.

    You: perl -MMP3::Splitter -e 'mp3_split($_,{},[ rand(64800), 30 ], ...) for @ARGV' filename.mp3

    I would like to take this opportunity to say that Perl guys are smartasses.

  6. Here's a nice elegant hack. by MadFarmAnimalz · · Score: 5, Funny

    Use small Windows-based devices and don't give it any further thought. The OS will crash at random (you don't have to pay extra for this, it does it out of the box), thereby giving you the fragmented recordings you seek.

    On the other hand, you could do it with an embedded linux device too; the frequent battery changes will have the desirable effect.

    Okay I confess I wrote this post to confuse the moderators into inaction; he's bashing windows -- no, he's bashing linux -- oh FUCK what to do...

    The correct moderation, gentle mod point merchant, is `funny'.

    --
    Blearf. Blearf, I say.
  7. Re:flame bait by DennisInDallas · · Score: 5, Funny

    You can't run Open Source code on Windoze without destroying the American way of life!, pinko