A step-by-step guide for doing spectrum analyses on Linux

Version 2005-04-22

Kai Lassfolk
Department of Musicology
University of Helsinki

Preface

This is a brief guide for getting started with the Linux-based spectrum analysis tools at Music Research Laboratory, University of Helsinki.

It is assumed here that you have your sound sound material on an audio CD.

  1. Boot the computer to Linux/Fedora (if needed)
  2. Log in and start a Terminal application
  3. Make a directory for your analysis project, if you haven't done this on a previous session. E.g.: 
    mkdir music
  4. Move your project directory: 
    cd music
  5. Insert your audio CD to the computer CD-ROM drive.
  6. If a CD player application starts up automatically, stop playback and quit the application.
  7. Extract a track from the CD Extract CD tracks to be analysed with sono as WAV files. E.g.: 
    cdda2wav -t 5 track5.wav
    Extract CD tracks to be analysed with spectutils as mono raw files. E.g.: 
    cdda2mono 5 track5-mono.raw
  8. Start the analysis program E.g.:
    sono
    or 
    octave
  9. Perform the analysis and print/store the results
  10. Quit the analysis program
  11. Remove any unnecessary files created during the analysis process E.g.: 
    rm track5.wav track5.inf track5.ps
  12. Log out and shut down the computer