Plotting Audio Data With R & Plotly
Disclaimer: This guide is written for Windows users however all tools are also available for Mac and Linux.
Presenting data in an aesthetically pleasing way can be difficult, there are many different tools available for creating graphs and plots but many of the best are challenging to learn, expensive, or both. This post will show you a way of using the free R programming language along with the graphing service Plotly to create high quality plots, specifically when dealing with audio data.
Time Domain Plots
Below you will find examples for plotting: Short audio clips (~1s) Time domain plot short.r Audio 0.8s.wav Long audio clips
FFT From A WAV File
Download the example script and audio file here. This example builds upon the script used in the time domain example. R
Loudspeaker Directivity Plots
Download example script and excel file here. A loudspeaker directivity plot shows frequency response as a function of directivity, allowing
Microphone Polar Plots
Download example scripts and data files here. In this example we will plot some idealised polar patterns followed by some
The Acoustics of Sonic Booms
Sonic booms are something that most people will have heard at some point in their lives, perhaps from planes passing by at an airshow, or from a bull whip (yes, the tip travels faster than the speed of sound!), but what exactly are they? and how do they produce such an incredible noise? This posts explores the acoustics of sonic booms.
A Guide To Hearing Protection
In many cases the use of hearing protection is essential for protecting yourself from loud and potentially dangerous noise, but there are many different types of hearing protection available for many different scenarios. Knowing which type of protection is the most appropriate for you is important, the guide below should help you to make a more informed decision about which to be using and when.
The Basics Of A Sound Level Meter
The modern sound level meter is a powerful tool with many useful functions, but what are the most important things to know? This post aims to act as a simple to follow guide.
Coffee shops provide great acoustics for creativity
Written by Lee Davison
As acousticians, we know (or like to think!) that the sound around us affects us in ways that most people don’t realise. Whether it’s reverb in your classroom that means you can’t hear the teacher properly, or in the shower making you think you’re a great singer, the acoustic spaces around us have a pretty profound effect on the way we experience life, that often goes unnoticed.
This makes you wonder what the ideal acoustic specification for a space is. What’s the best reverb time for music, or the best noise level for concentrating, or perhaps being creative? This is the question that Ravi Mehta, Rui Zhu and Amar Cheema undertook to answer in their 2012 paper; “Is Noise Always Bad? Exploring the Effects of Ambient Noise on Creative Cognition”.1
Natural Hearing Protection: Hands?
Have you ever covered your ears with your hands to protect yourself from loud noise? That’s the closest to natural hearing protection that we’ve got, but just how much does it reduce the sound pressure level reaching your ear? And what’s the best method? This experiment aims to find out.