MQTOAN

Convert SNDAN .mq format analysis files to .an format

Associated programs: Running mqtoan.

This program, new for the Windows version of SNDAN, combines the function of two original SNDAN programs, fcheck and harmformat. In the original system, these programs are run via a unix shell script, which queries the user interactively for parameters, and then launches the programs in the background. The Windows Console cannot provide this level of interactivity, and the shell script has been used as the basis for a new program, offering a one-command method for converting .mq files. The original programs are available for expert users (they offer rarely needed but sometimes useful extra parameters), but are not newly documented for this version. The program fcheck creates a binary file with the extension .ff; this has become a temporary file used internally by mqtoan. There is no other use for the .ff file; it is not human-readable, and no other programs except harmformat use it.

The two programs reflect the twin tasks required to make the conversion. Recalling that the .mq file contains a possibly large and variable number of partial tracks, each with an arbitrary frequency profile, the fcheck stage analyses the whole file to create a set of running estimates for the possibly time-varying fundamental frequencies through the file.  This will be used by the harmformat stage, together with an analysis fundamental frequency fa set by the user, to create the .an format frames of harmonics, based on  fa. The process is not infallible (see Getting Started: Session 2), and it is as well to have good idea of the fundamental frequency bounds of the infile before running this program, as guesswork is unlikely to lead to optimal results. This can be done using the display program mqplot.

Running mqtoan

Where the source sound is irregular, it can be difficult to find parameter values for a good conversion. Note that is is possible to combine several programs in a batch file (see Using the Windows Console); for example, by running mqtoan, addsyn and a command line soundfile play program (such as "playsfx" in the CDP Multi-Channel Toolkit) within a batch file, changes in parameters can be evaluated very rapidly.
 

Command line:

mqtoan mqfile anfile frmin  frmax  thresh  hai  fa  nhar
 

Parameters:

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