CK's Support Site for the Tatoeba Project

Shtooka Recorder
This section of a4esl.com is temporary and will eventually be deleted.
Short, easy-to-remember URL to this page
http://bit.ly/shtooka2

About

The Shtooka Recorder is the easiest and fastest way to record sentences for the Tatoeba Project.

You can use other free software such as Audacity, but it's much, much slower and requires many extra steps to accomplish the same thing.

If you can't use the Shtooka Recorder, and must use Audacity, please read Using Audacity to Record for the Tatoeba Project.

Brief Outline - How to record for the Tatoeba Project

  1. Download the Shtooka Recorder
  2. Try recording a few sentences to make sure you know how it works.
  3. Write to team@tatoeba.org telling us that you're interested in recording for us. Tell us what your native language is. Tell us your tatoeba.org username if you have one.
  4. CK will create a list of sentences formatted for the Shtooka Recorder for you.
  5. Record a few of these and send them to ck@tatoeba.org just to make sure everything is OK before you spend a lot of time recording many sentences.
  6. After that, you can easily record many sentences for us.

Step 1: Download the Shtooka Recorder (for Windows)

Alternate - Download the Swac Recorder (For Windows or Linux)

As far as I know, nobody contributing to the Tatoeba Project has used this one.
(I think this is just a slight rewrite of the Shtooka program.) So far, I think I still prefer the Shtooka Recorder. However, maybe one of these will work better for you. See a screenshot comparison between the Shtooka Recorder and the Swac Recorder.
You can't easily record long sentences with the Swac Recorder.

1-minute Demo of the Shtoooka Recorder by CK

This quick demo shows you how fast and easily you can record sentences.
Notice that on the 4th sentence, the audio was "saturated" and would have been distorted, but the recorder takes care of this kind of error by flashing pink in the level meter and then going back to the beginning of that sentence, so you can record it again..

Steps 2 and 3: Record a few sentences and send them to us.

Steps 4 and 5: We will send you a list of sentences to record.

Step 6: Record as many sentences for us as you can.

Suggestions / Recommendations

My Current Recording Setup
















Perhaps you don't need to read the rest of this page.








Screenshots from the Original Shtooka Recorder Instructions

The following is from shtooka.net (July 22, 2011) and is used under the Creative Commons "By" license. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/fr/)

It has been slightly edited, mainly to eliminate non-working links.

List of words that will be recorded:

This is where you paste in the sentence data.

Information About the Speaker:

This can be ignored for the Tatoeba Project. We don't use this data. However, it doesn't hurt to enter it. You'll only need to do this once.

Output Properties:

Audio Recording:

You can resize these windows to fit your screen as you like.

The user pronounces the first word, then Shtooka Recorder automatically switch to the next word while saving the file.

How to configure Recording Settings

You can use the default settings, so you don't need to change any of them.
For sentences, I find that setting the "final silence" to about 0.80 works quite well for me if there are some 2 sentence items. If all items are single sentences with no pauses, then 0:40 is what I use since I don't have to wait as long between sentences.

How does it work?

This window demonstrates the settings that are relevant to the recording process. Let's review the way the program works.

Settings :

The "Block Length" Parameter

This sets the time shown as a single block in the life "sound graph" diagram, and sets the duration for which "sound" or "silence" is determined. If you want a finer granularity, make it smaller; otherwise 0.05s is a good choice.

The "Margin Before" Parameter

This sets the time to be included in the recording before the first "sound" is determined. It should not be less than "Block Length", and usually should allow a listener to shift attention to listening after clicking "playback". (This is the duration of left of the two hatched zones, #3)

The "Margin After" Parameter

This sets the time to be included in the recording after the last "sound" block. It can be used as a "buffer" of silence before another sound recording can be played. (This is duration of the right of the two hatched zones, #3)

The "Final Silence" Parameter

This sets the time that the program has to wait after the end of the word (#6) to save it. If you want to record simple words, you can set it to 0.5s, if you are recording whole sentences, set it to 1s or 1.5s.

The "Minimum Length" Parameter

At the end of the word, if the total time is less than the "Minimum Length" the program will not save the buffer. This parameters can help you not to record parasite sounds.

The "Starting Threshold" Parameter

This sets the #1 Level, the minimum loudness triggering the beginning of the word or sentence.

The "Max Noise Level" Parameter

Sets the #2 threshold. Set it as low as you can. If this level is too high, the program will stop before the end of words!

The "Saturation Threshold" Parameter

This sets the #7 threshold. Try speaking very loudly into your microphone to determine the saturation level of your audio system, and set this parameter a little lower.

The documentation is also at web.archive.org

YouTube Video

Skip to 0:32, if you've already downloaded the Shtooka Recorder.

Created by tatoeba.org/user/profile/AmberShadow, I think.

Linux Source

Swac-Record swac-record est un programme écrit en C++ pour Qt qui permet l’enregistrement systématique de mots ou expression.

http://zmoo.fr/swac-tools/swac-record.php

You have to compile it yourself.

Find Some "Packs" of Words and Sentences

Other

  • Nico is a Tatoeba Project member related to the Shtooka Project
    http://tatoeba.org/eng/user/profile/zmoo