Audio::FindChunks - breaks audio files into sound/silence parts.

  use Audio::FindChunks;

  # Duplicate input to output, caching RMS values to a file (as a side effect)
  Audio::FindChunks->new(rms_filename => 'x.rms', filter => 1)->get('rms_data');

  # Output human-readable info, using RMS cache file 'xxx.rms' if present:
  Audio::FindChunks->new(cache_rms => 1, filename => 'xxx.mp3',
			 stem_strip_extension => 1)->output_blocks();

  # Remove start/end silence (if longer than 0.2sec):
  Audio::FindChunks->new(cache_rms => 1, filename => 'xxx.mp3',
			 min_actual_silence_sec => 1e100)->split_file();

  # Split a multiple-sides tape recording
  Audio::FindChunks->new(filename => 'xxx.mp3', min_actual_silence_sec => 11
			)->split_file({verbose => 1});

  # Output the RMS levels of small interval in human-readable form
  Audio::FindChunks->new(filename => 'xxx.mp3')->output_levels();

Audio sequence is broken into parts which contain only noise ("gaps"), and parts with usable signal ("tracks").

The following configuration settings (and defaults) are supported:

  # For getting PCM flow (and if averaging data is read from cache)
    frequency => 44100,		# If 'raw_pcm' or 'override_header_info' only
    bytes_per_sample => 4,	# likewise
    channels => 2,		# likewise
    sizedata => MY_INF,		# likewise (how many bytes of PCM to read)
    out_fh => \*STDOUT,		# mirror WAV/PCM to this FH if 'filter'
  # Process non-WAV data:
    preprocess => {mp3 => [[qw(lame --silent --decode)], [], ['-']]}, # Second contains extra args to read stdin
  # RMS cache (used if 'valid_rms')
    rms_extension => '.rms',	# Appended to the 'filestem'
  # Averaging to RMS info
    sec_per_chunk => 0.1,	# The window for taking mean square
  # thresholds picking from the list of sorted 3-medians of RMS data
    threshold_in_sorted_min_rel => 0,	 # relative position of 'threashold_min' 
    threshold_in_sorted_min_sec => 1,	 # shifted by this amount in the list
    threshold_factor_min => 1,		 # the list elt is multiplied by this
    threshold_in_sorted_max_rel => 0.5,  # likewise
    threshold_in_sorted_max_sec => 0,	 # likewise
    threshold_factor_max => 1,  	 # likewise
    threshold_ratio => 0.15,		 # relative position between min/max
  # Chunkification: smoothification
    above_thres_window => 11,		 # in units of chunks
    above_thres_window_rel => 0.25, 	 # fractions of chunks above threshold
					 # in a window to make chunk signal
  # Splitting into runs of signal/noise
    max_tracks => 9999,			 # fail if more signal/noise runs
    min_signal_sec => 5,		 # such runs of signal are forced
    min_silence_sec => 2,		 # likewise
    ignore_signal_sec => 1,		 # short runs of signal are ignored
    min_silence_chunks_merge (see below) # and long resulting runs of silence
					 # are forced
  # Calculate average signal in an interval "deeply inside" silence runs
    local_level_ignore_pre_sec => 0.3,	 # offset the start of this interval
    local_level_ignore_pre_rel => 0.02,  # additional relative offset
    local_level_ignore_post_sec => 0.3,  # likewise for end of the interval
    local_level_ignore_post_rel => 0.02, # likewise
  # Enlargement of signal runs: attach consequent chunks with signal this much
  # above this average over the neighbour silence run
    local_threshold_factor => 1.05,
  # Final enlargement of runs of signal
    extend_track_end_sec => 0.5,	 # Unconditional enlargement
    extend_track_begin_sec => 0.3,	 # likewise
    min_boundary_silence_sec => 0.2,	 # Ignore short silence at start/end

Note that above_thres_window is the only value specified directly in units of chunks; the other *_sec may be optionally specified in units of chunks by setting the corresponding *_chunks value. Note also that this window should better be decreased if minimal allowed silence length parameters are decreased.

These values are mirrored from other values if not explicitly specified:

 min_actual_silence_sec << min_silence_sec		# Ignore short gaps
 min_start_silence_sec  << min_boundary_silence_sec	# Same at start
 min_end_silence_sec    << min_boundary_silence_sec	# Same at end
 min_silence_chunks_merge << min_silence_chunks		# See above

 cache_rms_write <<< cache_rms	  # Boolean: write RMS cache
 cache_rms_read  <<< cache_rms	  # Boolean: read RMS cache (unless 'filter')

The following values default to undef:

    filename			# if undef, read data from STDIN
    stem_strip_extension	# Boolean: 'filestem' has no extension
    filter			# If true, PCM data is mirrored to out_fh
    rms_filename		# Specify cache file explicitly
    raw_pcm			# The input has no WAV header
    override_header_info	# The user specified values override WAV header
    cache_rms			# Use cache file (see *_write, *_read above)
    skip_medians		# Boolean: do not calculate 3-medians
    subchunk_size		# Optimization of calculation of RMS; the
				# best value depends on the processor cache

new(key1 => value1, key2 => value2, ....)

The arguments form a hash of configuration parameters.

set(key => value)

set a configuration parameter.

get(key)

get a configuration parameter or a value which may be calculated basing on them.

output_levels([key])

prints a human-readable display of RMS (or similar) values. Defaults to rms_data; additional possible values are medians and sorted.

The format of the output data is similar to

  Frequency: 44100.  Stride: 4; 2 channels.
  Chunk=0.1sec=17640bytes.
  ch0: -9999.0 .. 9999.0 (-10dB;-10dB).	ch1: -9999.0 .. 9999.0 (-10dB;-10dB).
       0:        0.0:   20.7= -61dB: ###########>
       1:        0.1:   20.7= -61dB: ###########>
       2:        0.2:   20.7= -61dB: ###########>
  ...

(with the ch0 ETC line empty if data is read from an RMS file). Each chunk gives a line with the chunk number, start (in sec), RMS intensity (in linear scale and in decibel), and the graphical representation of the decibel level (each # counts as 3dB, : adds 1dB, and > adds 2dB).

output_blocks([option_hashref], [key])

prints a human-readable display of obtained audio chunks. key defaults to b; additional possible values are b0 to b4. Recognized options key is format; defaults to long, which results in windy output; the value short results in shorter output and no preamble. Preamble lines are all #-commented; any output line is in the form

  START_SEC =END_SEC # COMMENT

With short format there is no preamble, and (currently) COMMENT is of the form PIECE_NUMBER len=PIECE_DURATION_SEC. These formats are recognized, e.g., by MP3::Split::mp3split_read().

The default format is currently

  # threshold: 1078.46653890971 (in 20.7214163971884 .. 7072.35556648067)
  4.4	=25.8	# n=1 duration 21.4; gap 4.4 (4.4 .. 25.8; 21.4)
  27.7	=67	# n=2 duration 39.3; gap 1.9 (27.7 .. 1m07.0; 39.3)

split_file([options], [key])

Splits the file (only MP3 via MP3::Splitter is supported now). The meaning of options is the same as for MP3::Splitter. Defaults to blocks of type b; additional possible values are b0 to b4.

@vals = get_rmsinfo(); set_rmsinfo(@vals)

Duplicate RMS info between two different Audio::FindChunks objects. The exchanged info is the following:

    chunks rms_data medians sorted channels min max
    frequency bytes_per_sample sec_per_chunk bytes_per_chunk

set_rmsinfo() returns the object itself.

The functionality of the module is modelled on the architecture of Data::Flow: the two principal methods are set(key => value) and get(key); the module knows how to calculate keys basing on values of other keys.

The results of calculation are cached; in particular, if one needs to calculate some value for different values of a configuration parameter, one should create many copies of Audio::FindChunks object, as in

  my @info = Audio::FindChunks->new(filename => $f)->get_rmsinfo;
  for my $ratio (0..100) {
    Audio::FindChunks->new(threshold_ratio => $r/100)
	->set_rmsinfo(@info)->print_blocks();
  }

The internally used format of intermediate data is designed for quick shallow copying even for enourmous audio files.

The current dependecies for values which are not explicitly set():

  filestem		<<< filename stem_strip_extension
  input_type		<<< filename
  preprocess_a		<<< input_type preprocess
  preprocess_input 	<<< preprocess_a filename
  fh AND close_fh	<<< preprocess_input filename
  fh_bin		<<< fh
  out_fh_bin		<<< filter out_fh
  rms_filename_default	<<< filestem rms_extension
  read_from_rms_file	<<< filter cache_rms_read rms_filename
  write_to_rms_file	<<< cache_rms_write rms_filename
  rms_filename_actual	<<< rms_filename rms_filename_default
  samples_per_chunk	<<< sec_per_chunk frequency
  bytes_per_chunk	<<< samples_per_chunk bytes_per_sample
  rms_data_arr_f	<<< read_from_rms_file rms_filename_actual
				samples_per_chunk
  rms_data AND chunks	<<< rms_data_arr_f OR A LOT OF OTHER PARAMETERS
  medians		<<< rms_data skip_medians chunks
  sorted		<<< medians chunks,
  threshold_in_sorted_* <<< chunks threshold_in_sorted_*_*
  threshold_min/max	<<< threshold_factor_* sorted threshold_in_sorted_min/max
  threshold		<<< threshold_min threshold_ratio threshold_max
  above_thres		<<< chunks rms_data threshold
  above_thres_in_window	<<< above_thres chunks above_thres_window
  above_thres_window_abs<<< above_thres_window_rel above_thres_window
  maybe_signal		<<< above_thres_in_window chunks above_thres_window_abs
  maybe_trk_pk		<<< max_tracks maybe_signal chunks
  b0			<<< maybe_trk_pk
  b1			<<< b0 min_signal_chunks min_silence_chunks
  b2			<<< b1 ignore_signal_chunks
  b3			<<< b2 min_silence_chunks_merge
  b4			<<< b3
  b			<<< b4 local_level_ignore_*
				medians local_threshold_factor
				extend_track_begin_chunks
				extend_track_end_chunks
				min_actual_silence_chunks
				min_start_silence_chunks min_end_silence_chunks

If rms_data is not read from cached source, a lot of other fields may be also set from the WAV header (unless raw_pcm).

Potentially large internally-cached values are stored as array references to decrease the overhead of shallow copying.

The data which relates to the initial chunks (of size sec_per_chunk) is stored as length 1 arrays with packed (either by l* or d*, depending on the semantic) data; this allows small memory footprint work with huge audio files, and allows an easy implemenation of most computationally intensive work in C.

The blocks of audio/signal/noise/silence are stored as Perl arrays; each element is a reference to an array of length 3: type (-1 for silence, 0 for noise, 1 for signal, and 2 for audio), start chunks, duration in chunks.

The algorithm for finding boundaries of parts follows closely the algorithm used by GramoFile v1.7 (however, this version is fully customizable, fully documented, and has some significant bugs fixed). The keywords in the discussion below refer to customization parameters; keywords of the form >>>key refer to get()able values set on the step in question.

Smooth the input

This is done in 2 distinct steps:

Break the input into chunks of equal duration (governed by sec_per_chunk); find the acoustic energy of each channel per chunk (no customization); energy is the quadratic average of signal level; calculate maximal energy among channels per chunk (no customization; >>>rms_data).

Trim "extremal" chunks by replacing the energy level of each chunk by the median of it and its two neighbors (switched off if skip_medians; >>>medians).

Calculate the signal/noise threshold

basing on the distribution (>>>sorted) of smoothed values. Governed by threshold_* parameters. >>>threshold_min, >>>threshold_max, >>>threshold.

Smooth it again

Separate into signal and noise chunks basing on the number of above-threshold chunks in a small window about the given chunk. Governed by above_thres_window, above_thres_window_rel. >>>maybe_signal, >>>b0.

Find certain intervals of sound and silence

Long enough runs of signal chunks are proclaimed carrying sound; likewise for noise chunks and silence. Governed by max_tracks, min_signal_chunks, min_silence_chunks. >>>b1.

Long enough "unproclaimed" runs of chunks with only short bursts of signal are proclaimed silence. Governed by ignore_signal_chunks, >>>b2; and min_silence_chunks_merge, >>>b3.

Merge undecided into sound/silence

A run of chunks (signal or noise) "yet unproclaimed" to be sound or silence is proclaimed sound if it is adjacent to a run of sound on at least one side. The rest of unproclaimed runs are proclaimed silence. No customization.

Runs of sound/silence are audio/gap candidates (no customization; >>>b4).

Calculate average signal level in each gap candidate

ignoring short intervals near ends of gaps. Governed by local_level_*.

Allow for slow attack/decay or fade in/out

Extend runs of audio: join the consequent runs of chunks of adjacent gaps where the energy level remains significantly larger than the average level in this gap. Additionally, unconditionally extend the tracks by a small amount. Governed by local_threshold_factor, extend_track_end_chunks, extend_track_begin_chunks.

Long enough gap candidates are gaps

Gaps which became too short are considered audio and are merged into neighbors. Governed by min_actual_silence_chunks, min_start_silence_chunks, min_end_silence_chunks; >>>b.

  long bool_find_runs(int *input, array_run_t *output, long cnt, long out_cnt)
  void double_find_above(double *input, int *output, long cnt, double threshold)
  void double_median3(double *rmsarray, double *medarray, long total_blocks)
  void double_sort(double *input, double *output, long cnt)
  void int_find_above(int *input, int *output, long cnt, int threshold)
  void int_sum_window(int *input, int *output, long cnt, int window_size)
  void le_short_sample_stats(char *buf, int stride, long samples, array_stats_t *stat)

Data::Flow, MP3::Split

Ilya Zakharevich, <cpan@ilyaz.org<gt>

Copyright (C) 2004 by Ilya Zakharevich

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.2 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.