April 25, 2006
The Chinese School was part of last summer’s iPod Initiative (see: BMC To Go). We took thousands of audio files we had created over the years and embedded metadata into them from the lexical database we developed to organize these files. Many of these audio files were very short, representing a single vocabulary item, and as such were difficult to control the playback of, primarily because the iPod would play the next audio track before students had a chance to stop and pause the current track….
This year we would like to increase the length of these files so that students can better control their playback. We have done some research and found that the best way to do this is to have each audio file repeat a vocabulary item 3x with space between each repetition during which students can repeat what they hear. Ideally the space between repetitions of the vocabulary are approximately the same amount of time as it takes to say the item, thus creating a smooth transition between hearing and producing.
We have found the 1200 original files (in mov format) and have converted these to wave format. Now all that needs to be done is:
- Open each file in an audio editing program (such as Audacity)
- Add silence to the end of the file
- Copy the entire file and paste to the end of itself 2x
- Save the file
How long will this take? I have done some testing and figure with practice one could eventual edit 2-3 files per minute. Thus 1200 files would take one person 10 hours… For documentation on how to do this, see:
Editing Audio > Chinese