About this app
Not just another wav-File Recorder
This is NOT just another wav-File Recorder for high-quality audio recordings at a sampling rate of 48 kHz and a 16-bit resolution (no compression). Unlike other Apps in the field, the IFMA recorder possesses unique features that allow you (1) to monitor the quality of audio recordings by means of “Time Series Plots”; and (2) to explore the tonal composition of sounds regarding distribution and intensity of higher harmonics (“overtones”) by means of “Spectrum Plots” at a quartertone resolution over 7 octaves.
● The App enables hassle-free audio recordings at high quality at virtually no cost. No other device is required that you have to carry with you and whose batteries have to be charged.
● The App’s GUI does not show mainstream “material” styles. Rather, it looks quite different as our focus lies on the utmost functionality and a perfect readability such that all functions are at your fingertips even in low-light situations.
● The App comes with integrated help files (that work offline) as well as a comprehensive manual with detailed examples.
Smart Companion for Rehearsals
A great tool to quantitatively assess the sound characteristics of your voice or musical instrument: find out how things improve over time by means of regular assessments.
● Towards the perfect vibrato: improve your technique by using “Spectrum Plots” as immediate bio-feedback.
● Towards the perfect speech: optimize a speech in terms of phrasing, intonation, accentuation, length of pauses and utterances by means of “Time Series Plots”.
Getting to Know Yourself Better
Learn to modify the color (“timbre”) of your voice or musical instrument in a strictly controlled way using “Spectrum Plots” in the sense of an immediate bio-feedback.
● Learn how regular voice recordings can improve your coping behavior under stress so that you feel much more comfortable, for example, when speaking in public.
Background
Speech production is the result of a joint effort of mind and body. It involves a cascade of steps from utterance planning to final sound production with hundreds of degrees of freedom. Voice sound characteristics relate to the subjects’ mean vocal pitch along with the distribution and intensity of “overtones” that make up the subjects’ individual voice “timbres”. Overtones are the higher tones which faintly accompany a fundamental tone. These overtones are responsible for the tonal diversity of sounds and make voices and musical instruments distinguishable from each other.
Experienced speakers, vocalists and instrumentalists can voluntarily modify the “timbre” of their voice or their musical instrument in a strictly controlled way, for example, from “lyric” to “dramatic” or from “lovesome” to “hateful”. This is accomplished by varying the amplitude envelope and spectral envelope of a particular sound or a sequence of sounds (“vibrato”). Vibrato is a technique that produces a shimmery variation in pitch and is used to “warm up” the sound of a voice or a musical instrument. On the other hand, when attempting to cope with stressful situations, subjects tend to speak in a hectic, abrupt, and often monotonous way. Most notably, subjects under stress speak a halftone above their “natural” mean vocal pitch — an effect that is highly unwanted as it can immediately be perceived by attentive listeners in the audience.
Spectrum analysis reveals the sound characteristics of voices and musical instruments by displaying a fundamental tone along with the distribution and intensity of its higher harmonics (“overtones”) in the form of intensity versus frequency plots. Thus, users can visually assess the tonal composition of a sound as well as its characteristic variation over time. Time series plots allow users to verify the overall quality of a recording by looking for clipped amplitudes and by examining intervals without audio signal for unwanted background noise.
[cf. Manual: “http://ifma-health.com/PDF/wavManual_E.pdf”]
