 This presentation will introduce you to the basic principles of using the sound analysis software Pratt. Beforehand, we should note that Pratt is not a professional sound editing program. So, if you want to create and use audio files that involve special effects such as equalizer, reverb or echo, one should rather use alternative software packages, for example the free sound editing software Audacity. We will proceed as follows. After a brief overview of Pratt, we will first look at the principles of sound capturing, that is, loading sounds into Pratt and we will then discuss the various analysis options. Well, Pratt is a program that was created by two Dutchmen. Here they are, Paul Bersma and David Wienink. I hope my pronunciation is correct and it was created at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. This explains the name. Pratt is Dutch and means to speak, to talk. Now, Pratt is freely available on the web. Here is the URL where you find more details about Pratt. For example, a text-based tutorial. Let's now start working with Pratt. After program activation, Pratt opens two main windows. The object window, which is here. The object window is the main window for program control and the picture window, where we can create and manipulate graphics that have been created from Pratt sound files. For simple sound analysis, we don't need this window, so let's close it and let's maximize the object window for further inspection. Before we now edit and manipulate sounds, we have to get one. In fact, there are two methods of sound capture. We can either import an existing sound file or we can directly record a sound file from Pratt. Let's look at sound import first. With a few mouse clicks, we can read an existing sound file from our disk. The menu option in the object window is open and then read from file. And immediately a folder will open. Well, I've prepared one here where you have sound files. In fact, all standard types of sound files can be reported, for example, mp3 or wave files. Let's open the file rp-monophones, which contains the monophones of received pronunciation, the standard variety of British English. It is a sound file that is used in the Virtual Linguistics Campus Language Index. Now, as soon as this file has been opened, it appears as a new sound object in the object window. It is sound object number one, object type sound. And the name of this sound file is of course the file name itself. Let's now use the second option and record a speech sound into Pratt. All we need is a computer. Well, I have one here. I'm sitting in front of a computer and a microphone. Well, my microphone is here as you can. Well, you can't really see it, but it is here. You can hear me. So all I have to do is I choose new and then record mono sound. Well, I will confide myself to one channel only. This is fully sufficient for the analysis of speech. Now, before I can proceed with the recording, I have to choose a number of settings. First of all, the channel itself again, so mono or stereo. And then the sampling frequency. And as you know, 22,050 Hertz are fully sufficient for the recording of human speech. Also, I can select the name of my recording. That is not the file name, but the name that will appear in the object window. And now I can start recording my sounds. And I will record two sounds, the sounds C and SO. So here we go. C, SO. Now I can stop it and listen to my recording. C, SO. Well, and if I'm not satisfied, I can do it all over again, overwriting the previous recording. So let's do it again. C, SO. Listen again. C, SO. Well now, since I like this sound, I can either just save it to list and record a second one or save to list and close this window. So let's use the option save to list and close. And now you see my sound object has also become part of the object window. It is now sound object number two and the name is test. Now, as soon as we have a number of sound objects in the object window, several buttons will appear here to the right. One of them is of course the play button where you can simply listen to your sound again. C, SO. Now the more powerful option and that's the one which we will use most often in Prat is the view and edit option. It is in fact, you could say the heart of sound analysis in Prat. A simple click on this option will open the sound that is marked in the object window and display it in a new window. This new window is called the sound editor window. So let's apply this option to our direct recording object test. And here we are. In this window you can see a waveform in the top half. Sometimes you may be able to see two waveforms if you have a stereo sound. And probably you will see some other, let's call it some other analysis now in the bottom half. Depending on your configuration of Prat, this second analysis in the entire bottom half is probably a spectrogram. Let us now perform some simple actions in this sound editor window. For example, you can select a part of a sound by holding the left mouse button and then move the mouse cursor over the part you want to select. If you only want to hear it, you can simply use this button here at the bottom. See, if you want to inspect it more closely, you can apply the view option and then zoom to selection. And now you will only have the selection in your sound editor window. And again, you can of course listen to it. See, so if you want to zoom in further, for example, just the vowel or the main part of the vowel, you can do it here. Zoom to selection. See, so. And if you want to move out again, you can show everything and that's where we've just been. If you want to isolate a certain part, you can apply the typical cut and paste options as you're used to from, let's say, text editing software. So here is the cut option and now I can paste it elsewhere and now I have just my vowel. And this of course is now the word see without a vowel. See, so. Well, furthermore, you can open sound windows for more than one sound and then use the cut, copy and paste option. Well, as I said, just as you're used to in standard software for text editing, graphic software and so on. Please note, however, that if you move parts of a sound file into another sound editor window, both windows have to use the same sound setting. That is the same sample frequency, for example. Well, let's now minimize this window and open our RP monophones into the sound editor. Well, whereas the waveform appears as usual, the spectrogram won't be shown. Obviously, as it is said here, the analysis is too long. So what can we do? Well, the default length of a sound in the sound editor window is 10 seconds. However, we can raise this value. Well, this is what we have to do. Choose the view menu, select the show analysis option and simply increase the value in terms of seconds for sound length in the sound editor window and apply it to the existing sound file. And immediately you can see the spectrogram appears of all our RP sound files in the bottom half of our window. And now we can do the same things again. We can, for example, select certain parts of our sound files and zoom into this selection. And now here we have C, again now spoken by a native speaker of RP English. Now, the sound editor window is the heart of Pratt. Here we can analyze and manipulate our sounds in many ways. And the most interesting option for the linguist is, of course, the spectrogram. And this can be analyzed in several ways. How this can be done is shown in the interpretation of spectrograms with Pratt.