Università degli Studi di Pavia
Centro Interdisciplinare di Bioacustica e Ricerche Ambientali
SeaWave - Sound Emission Analyzer Wave edition
SeaWave
is
a
light version of the SeaPro
package. Developed by CIBRA and
AEST, it offers most of the functions and capabilities
of SeaPro; it runs up to 200kHz in windows XP and up to
250kHz in Windows 7 for both real-time spectrogram
visualization and continuous recording to disk. This
free version has some limitations, however it can
satisfy most user needs. Recording functions are
limited to single file recording with 680MB max file
size. Other limitations are about the advanced settings
panel for fine tuning the aspect and behaviour of the
program and for saving/restoring the user configuration.
This SeaWave edition supports the Dodotronic UltraMic200k and UltraMic250k, special ultrasonic microphones with integrated 200 or 250 kHz AD converter and USB port. They are great for recording ultrasounds up to near 90 or 120kHz (bats, rodents, insects....), depending on the model. The 250k model (compatible with Windows 7 only) allows to cover all bat species, including horseshoe bats.
The UltraMics don't require a driver, just plug in a USB 2.0 port, run SeaWave, choose the UltraMic as input device, and set the proper sampling rate! It works well even on netbooks and tablets with the Atom cpu.
Please consider the SeaPro package for professional use.
This version of the
software can be redistributed. Any public use,
including web pages, which include spectrograms made
with this software must include suitable references
and acknowledgements. In case of doubts, please
write.
Read a
nice review made by Al Milano
SeaWave_Software_Review.pdf
Bug reports, users'
feedback and hints for new features are welcome.
SeaWave history - List
of updates
SeaWave 2 released on
March 2011
added 200k sampling rate to support the UltraMic200k
May 6, 2011
enabled Buffer option to save the last 30s, 60s or
more, while not recording
added 192k sampling rate
July 2, 2011
added 250k sampling rate to support the new
UltraMic250k
Beta versions, not released yet:
July 12, 2011
added a spectral trigger feature to allow automatic
recording to wav file only when there are bat calls!
By properly setting the frequency range and the dB
threshold a bit above the background noise, your PC
will be able to record unattended for hours or
weeks. Every morning you'll find on your hard disk
the timestamped wav files.... maybe hundreds of
files that will show you all echolocating bats that
flew and catched preys in the detection range of
your sensor.
This new version will be released soon.
Spectrogram gallery - Download the images to see them at full resolution.
A special thank to Marco Pesente for the valuable recording of bats (Pipistrellus kuhlii and Eptesicus serotinus - the lowest in frequency; probably a third species is also present...) made with the Dodotronic UltraMic200k.
Details (at different time resolution) and overview (compressed timeline) of a long sequence of calls to show the presence of two bat species. The red parts of the envelope show overloaded signals.
The
compressed
timeline can be easily obtained by setting a long
analysis window (e.g. 8192 or 16384 samples), this
forces the FFT to the same size, and by setting the
scan step to half the length of the window. A further
packing can be obtained by setting the windows type to
Linear and the scan step to the same size of the
window.
Samples made with the UltraMic250
and the new automatic recording software:
A sequence of bat calls recorded with the UltraMic250k, gain set to low.
Home Page of the Centro Interdisciplinare di Bioacustica e Ricerche Ambientali
Page compiled by Gianni Pavan, last update July 2011.