Options

Options can be changed by clicking on 'Fast Track > Set options'. Many settings can be overridden by the individual function calls. Also, some settings (such as working directory) are remembered across uses.

There are three types of settings, edited in different menus. To change between settings menus, change the 'Menu' at the bottom of the options dialog box and then click 'Switch Options' immediately below. The options menus are:

1. Settings: change the basic function of Fast Track.

2. Heuristics: change the Heuristics used to select the best tracks.

3. CSV output: change the data recorded in the CSV files.

Settings

Default working folder: The functions will write output to this folder. For the folder analysis option, Fast Track will look for sounds to analyze in a subfolder called 'sounds', inside this working folder. By default, files will be written to the Fast Track folder.

Low cutoff frequency: The lowest analysis frequency that will be considered. Default is 4800 Hz.

High cutoff frequency: The highest analysis frequency that will be considered. Default is 6500 Hz.

Number of steps: The number of steps to be considered between the low and high analysis frequencies. Default is 16.

Number of coefficients: The maximum order of predictors for formant contours. The default is 5, meaning predictors are equivalent to a 5th order polynomial.

Maximum plotting frequency: Maximum plotting frequency for spectrograms when images are generated.

Time step: Analysis time steps, in seconds. Default is 0.002s, meaning that formants are estimated every 2 milliseconds. This should be low enough to result in enough samples to allow for modelling of formant contours.

Tracking method: 'burg' for standard LPC tracking, 'robust' for robust tracking.

Basis functions: 'dct' for discrete cosine transform, 'polynomial' for Chebyshev polynomials (coming soon).

Error method: Right now it only uses the mean absolute deviation in residuals, and each formant is weighted equally. This penalizes outliers a little less than using the variance (no clue which is better in general).

Heuristics

Heuristics can be turned on/off, and modified with this menu. These heuristics add a penalty to analyses that violate them, thereby making them less likely to be selected. Heuristics are implemented in a very primitive manner: if a rule is broken, a penalty of 10000 is added to the error for the track. This takes the analysis out of contention unless all analyses are penalized, and makes it easy to see which analyses were penalized for violating a heuristic. For more information about the heuristics see this page.

The heuristics are:

Maximum F1 frequency: Median F1 frequency should not be higher than 1200 Hz.

Maximum F2 bandwidth: Median F2 bandwidth should not be higher than 500 Hz.

Maximum F3 bandwidth: Median F3 bandwidth should not be higher than 600 Hz.

Maximum F4 bandwidth: median F4 bandwidth should not be higher than 900 Hz.

Rhotic heuristic: If F3 < 2000 Hz, F1 and F2 should be at least 500 Hz apart.

F3-F4 proximity heuristic: If (F4 - F3) < 500 Hz, F1 and F2 should be at least 1500 Hz apart.

CSV Outputs

Optional data columns that can be written to CSV files:

Bandwidth: formant bandwidths for each tracked formant.

Predictions: predicted formant frequencies for each tracked formant.

Pitch: f0 estimates for each time point.

Intensity: intensity estimates for each time point.

Harmonicity: harmonicity estimates for each time point.

Normalized time: time as a fraction of the span of the formant estimates (first measurement = 0, final measurement = 1).