Sonic Visualiser: Getting started

The following is what you need to do before you can use the CHARM tutorial for Sonic Visualiser, A musicologist's guide to Sonic Visualiser .

Downloading and installing Sonic Visualiser

Unless the computer you are using is already running Sonic Visualiser, you will need to download and install the program yourself. The following downloading and installation instructions are for the Windows XP Professional operating system and Mozilla Firefox browser, and may require minor adaptations for different systems. Sonic Visualiser is available for Windows, OS/X, and Linux, but these tutorials have been tested on the Windows version only.

  • 1. Go to the Sonic Visualiser website. There you will find the latest version of the program, together with information about the program and documentation.
  • 2. From the download page, download the Windows version of the program to a temporary location such as your desktop.
  • 3. Click on the downloaded folder and then on 'Extract all files' to open the Extraction Wizard. Create the following directory and unzip the files to there: C:\Program Files\Sonic Visualiser.
  • 4. Now go to the VAMP plugins download page. Download the Windows versions of the Vamp Audio plugins and MATCH Vamp plugins to a temporary location and unzip to the following directory which you will need to create: C:\Program Files\Vamp plugins. If the individual plugin libraries are in subdirectories, move the .dll and .cat files into the main C:\Program Files\Vamp plugins directory.
  • 5. From the VAMP plugins download page, download the Mazurka plugins by clicking on mazurka-plugins.dll. As it is not zipped, you can save it directly to C:\Program Files\Vamp plugins.
  • 6. Next, create a link icon on the Desktop (or Task Manager) for Sonic Visualiser. To do so, right-click with the mouse somewhere on the desktop. Select the menu option New and then select Shortcut from the list that appears. In the box entitled Type the location of the item:, type the following: C:\Program Files\Sonic Visualiser\sonic-visualiser.exe. Then click Next, and finally click Finish.
  • 7. You should now have an icon on your desktop which is called sonic-visualiser.exe. Double-click on that icon to start Sonic Visualiser. If it doesn't start, go back to step one and make sure you followed the instructions properly. Repeat until you can successfully start the program.

Downloading the tutorial resources

To enable you to follow the Sonic Visualiser tutorial, you will have to download the following zip archive containing sound and other files: allsvtutorfiles.zip (zip file) (16MB). As before, download it to a temporary location, and unzip it to C:\Program Files\Sonic Visualiser. (You can choose to locate it somewhere else, but then you will need to specify the location each time you open a file).

And now...

You are now ready to work through the CHARM tutorial, A musicologist's guide to Sonic Visualiser.