Luscinia

• Index
• Quick links
• Credits
• Overview
• Technical details
  • Authorship and collaboration
  • Technical support
  • Bugs
  • How to cite Luscinia
  • Source code
  • Licence & Warranty
• The 5-minute Tour
• Manual
  • Installation
  • Log-In window
  • Edit window
  • Spectrograph window
    • Controls
    • Appearance
    • Measurements
    • Parameters
    • Records
  • Measurement units
  • Analysis window
    • Comparison schemes
    • Analysis types
  • Computer comparison
    • Comparison parameters
    • Analysis and Visualization
  • Parametric comparison
  • Exporting measurements
    • Statistics
    • Element measures
  • Visual Analysis
    • Simple visual comparisons
    • Complex visual analysis
  • Administration
    • New database
    • Add new user
    • Back-Up/Load Database
    • Set-Up SQL
    • Database Locations
• Algorithms
  • Fundamental frequency extraction
  • Mean frequency calculation
  • Median frequency calculation
  • Dynamic Time Warping
  • Normalization for DTW
  • Syllable and Song Distances

What is Luscinia?

Luscinia (named after the genus name for nightingales) is a bioacoustics analysis program oriented around a database to archive your recordings. Luscinia was first designed as a way to measure a large sample of field recordings of songbirds, and its design allows for the rapid, semi-automated measurement of sounds from spectrographs, without noise adding spurious results. It incorporates three different analysis tools at present:
1) export a wide selection of acoustic measurements directly into spreadsheets (including .xls format)
2) carry out “visual” comparisons of spectrographs on the screen, and with results saved to the database
3) carry out computational comparisons of measured sounds, using an advanced dynamic time-warping algorithm. The results can analyzed in interactive NMDS plots or UPGMA trees

Some of the more unique aspects of Luscinia that might help you choose between it and the other options available for bioacoustical analysis are:

1) Databases built integrally into the program, allowing/forcing you to archive laboratory and field recordings. The goal is to ensure that recordings are only measured once!
2) An innovative measurement method that maximizes the speed at which biological signals can be measured.
3) An echo-removal algorithm that improves one’s ability to measure field recordings
4) A visual analysis module that allows traditional categorization-by-eye with no paper, or transcription errors
5) An innovative computer-based comparison algorithm based on the “dynamic time warping algorithm”
6) A suite of post-comparison tools: interactive upgma trees of sound comparisons, sharing-versus-geographic distance graphs.

Luscinia is not (yet) suitable as a general sound editor, and does not (yet) make real-time spectrographs. It also doesn’t make measurements from the sound’s waveform (only from the spectrograph). It doesn’t carry out cross-correlation (although I believe the dtw algorithm to be superior in all respects I can think of). These are all on the list of features to be added to the program, and I welcome suggestions for the future of Luscinia! Check out some of these other excellent free software projects if you think Luscinia might not meet your needs.