Virtual Lab: Sound Analysis Principles

Explore the materials below to learn natural sound analysis skills and become familiar with essential bioacoustics concepts.

American Avocet by Melissa Penta

The following videos and exercises use Raven Pro 1.6 software and assume a general familiarity with Raven. To learn the basic mechanics of the software, please begin by watching the Raven tutorial videos, available in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Hindi. For additional information on installing and using Raven, please see the Raven Knowledge Base.

This virtual curriculum is abstracted from our more extended in-person workshops. We are continuing to develop virtual offerings. Please check back regularly for additional updates and materials. If you have feedback or questions, please contact us at bioacoustics@cornell.edu.

NOTE: If YouTube is not readily accessible based on your location, all the instructional videos linked below are also visible on our Vimeo channel.

Field Practicalities

Equipment (3:58 minute video)
Deployment and Data Management (32:39 minute video)
1. SWIFT Deployment
  - Packing Checklist (PDF)
  - Deployment Checklist (PDF)
2. Sample Deployment Sheet
  - Terrestrial (PDF)
  - Marine (Spreadsheet)
3. Voice Announcement Checklist for Acoustic Recordings (PDF)
4. Sample Metadata for Acoustic Recordings (Spreadsheet)
Swift 101 (In development)

Sound Analysis Topics

Introduction to Digital Audio
Introduction to spectrograms (In development)
Spectrogram parameters 1 (In development)
Raven measurements (In development)
Digital audio artifacts 1: Clipping
Digital audio artifacts 2: Aliasing
- Video: Aliasing (24:53 minute video)
Sound and shape (In development)
Spectrogram parameters 2 (In development)
Decibel measurements (In development)
Automated detection in Raven: Band-limited Energy Detector
- Guided exercise: Band-limited Energy Detector -BLED (PDF)
- Resources: Download sound files for guided exercise
  1. Red-eyed vireo (audio file)
  2. Katydid (audio file)
Automated detection in Raven: Template Detector (In development)
Spectrogram cross-correlation for comparing sounds
- Guided exercise: Spectrogram Cross-correlation (PDF)
- Resources: Download sound files for guided exercise (zipped audio files)
Feature-based sound comparison methods (In development)

Customizing Raven

Preferences, selection labels, color schemes (In development)

External Resources

Below we provide a link to a page containing additional resources for learning about acoustics and sound analysis. These are links from outside resources. CCB is not responsible for the maintenance, security, and contents of these external resources.