[AUDITORY] Try AUXLAB!

[Bomjun Kwon <alist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I’d like to introduce AUXLAB to you all.

AUXLAB is a free program in Windows (Windows 7 and later) to generate 
and process audio signals with command line syntax. The syntax, AUX 
(AUdio syntaX), is similar to MATLAB syntax; but it has a number of its 
own language features useful for audio.  If you are a MATLAB user, you 
will have very little problem following AUX. Actually, those with little 
or no programming background should learn AUX relatively easily, too, as 
long as they have some understanding of sound and acoustics.

Download link (no installation required; just unzip and run it): 
http://auditorypro.com/download/auxlab/auxlab.html

Video tutorials on YouTube (probably more useful than wordy help 
documents below):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3oVyjivNwSemikPL_pP3gqz8Ud3wqXkR

Documentation: http://auditorypro.com/download/auxlab/AUXLAB.pdf

Online help: http://auxlab.org/help/AUXLAB.html

Join the forum and ask me questions: http://auxlab.org/forum

Source code link: https://github.com/bjkwon/auxlab

Watch the tutorial videos (each is 4-5 min on average) today. You won't 
regret.

Bomjun Kwon
bjkwon@xxxxxxxxx

If your sanity is not compromised by long, verbose, wordy messages, keep 
reading---

Back in the 70’s or 80’s , MATLAB was introduced to science/engineering 
students as an alternative to C, and has gained popularity over the 
years because we don’t want to spend time worrying about memory 
management or other C-language things (no matter how fancy they look) 
when all we need to solve this damn problem or run simulation, etc. I 
say the same thing: MATLAB is a great tool; but it still has a lot of 
programming chores that are not relevant to auditory perception or audio 
processing. How often do you swear when you have an error because you 
didn’t match the length of arrays to add or multiply? Probably every 
day, all the time. Do you, auditory scientists or audio engineers, 
really need to care about data sample points and counting them? Yes, 
embedded systems engineers do; but not you. You care more about how long 
the sound is, how long one sound proceeds or overlaps with the other, or 
how long is the gap, etc—all in seconds (or milliseconds), not in 
samples. You live in the dB world—your brain releases a lot more 
neurotransmitters when you hear “amplitude down by 2.5 dB” than 
“amplitude reduced by the factor of 0.75.” AUX provides a layer of 
abstraction just the way we audio people need, so we focus more on the 
sound itself not its implementation. MATLAB knows no sound; AUXLAB is 
built on sound. Why not try AUXLAB?

Some numbered bullet points here:

1.	On the surface, AUXLAB looks like and runs like MATLAB; It has the 
console where you type in the syntax; the variables window showing the 
variables in the workspace; and the history window showing the commands 
you have typed in.
2.	Easy to make plots of variables (the plot automatically updated as 
the variable changes)
3.	Easy to play audio signals, easy to manage multiple sound objects
4.	The AUX syntax is largely similar to MATLAB; but there are numerous 
operators unique for audio processing (such as @ to set the RMS level) 
and improvements in syntax features at a different level from MATLAB; 
for example, the OOP style function calling: e.g., x.sqrt instead of 
sqrt(x) or x.fft.abs.plot instead of plot(abs(fft(x))); which one would 
you choose?
5.	You can make your own functions with *.aux files, just like *.m files 
of MATLAB; There’s also a debugger similar to the one in Visual Studio 
or MATLAB.
6.	Shh, don’t tell this to anyone—this is totally FREE. Except for 
corporate users: I may charge them somehow in the future; but don’t know 
how now. Enjoy free while you can.
7.	This is an open source project. Contributors are welcomed, especially 
if you can help with other platforms--OSX, Linux or Web interface
https://github.com/bjkwon/auxlab
8.	There are “modules” that reside in AUXLAB for additional 
functionalities, including psychoacoustic experimental suites (like 
Psycon), special speech processing suite, real-time audio processing 
suite. I’m not releasing them publicly. I may in the future, if I am in 
the right mood. Anyway, the point is, modules can be made opaque to test 
proprietary ideas. Now you know.
9.	A little history: I began this software project in 2006 when I made a 
program called Psycon to support psychoacoustic experiments. In 2011 a 
paper was published introducing AUX, after rejected by almost all major 
journals (JASA, HR, JSHLR, EH, you name it) for several years! (Kwon, B. 
J. (2012). AUX: A scripting language for auditory signal processing and 
software packages for psychoacoustic experiments and education. Behavior 
Research Methods. 44, 361-373). Given this feat, I’m sad to say this: 
please don’t read it. It’s like trying to understand MS-DOS to use 
Windows 10.
10.	To users of Psycon and AUX Viewer: AUX Viewer is obsolete and given 
the comprehensive features of AUXLAB, there’s no need to even update it. 
Psycon, on the other hand, is still alive, but I wouldn’t support it its 
original form; because it can be a separate module residing in AUXLAB. I 
would be happy to help you run a Psycon-like module in AUXLAB.
11.	One of the goals of the Psycon project was to make a program that 
could support ANY psychoacoustic experiment that we could conceive. 
Indeed, Psycon fulfilled that goal. Well, almost, because one of my 
esteemed colleagues Huanping Dai once asked me (I think that was in 
2008) if Psycon could support an experiment where a psychoacoustic 
testing is done while the presentation of background noise is 
indefinitely on-going without interruption. That was the only time I 
couldn’t answer right away “Yes, Psycon can" when I was talking to many 
psychoacousticians. Now, I say confidently: Yes Psycon in AUXLAB can.
12.	Actually, it’s not just whether it can or cannot. I am more 
concerned with how easy the job can be done and how intuitive the coding 
is to general audio people, not software engineers. AUXLAB gives you 
that privilege.
13.	The help document mentioned above is more like a reference manual; 
not a friendly guide or tutorial. So, I made video tutorials and put 
them on YouTube. Each of these is 4-5 minutes on average, helping you 
invest your time topic by topic.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3oVyjivNwSemikPL_pP3gqz8Ud3wqXkR

1.	Quick start
2.	Quick filtering
3.	Addition, Time-shift operator >>
4.	Vectors and colon operator
5.	Time indexing with tilde (~)
6.	Stereo audio signals
7.	Matrix: Part 1
8.	Matrix: Part 2
9.	Keyboard shortcuts
10.	Compound operators
11.	Replicator ..
12.	Conditional indexing
13.	Audio playback
14.	Graphics
15.	Time-frequency manipulation Part 1
16.	Debugger & UDF (User-Defined Function)

(not yet uploaded, but in the pipeline)
17.	Time-frequency manipulation Part 2
18.	UDF demo with a real audio application
19.   Audio "chunk" programming
20.   Programming with time sequences
21.	$ (Special) variables