OpenSesame Plug-in: Audio Low Latency
An OpenSesame plug-in for playing and recording audio files with low latency.
Copyright, 2022, Bob Rosbag
About
The main goal of this plug-in is to play and record audio with minimal and predictable latencies to achieve a high accuracy and precision. The 'PyAlsaAudio' package which uses the Linux ALSA audio system provided the best results within Python. 'PortAudio' and 'sounddevice' are cross-platform and work on both Windows and Linux.
This plug-in consists of playback and recording items as well as foreground and background (multi-threaded) items. Both playback and recording have their own init item. These should be placed at the beginning of an experiment.
Difference between foreground and background:
- Foreground items play/record until the file ends or the set duration has passed.
- Background items consist of a 'start', 'wait' and 'stop' item. These are fully multi-threaded. After the start of the playback/recording, the item will immediately advance to the next item. When it reaches the 'stop' or 'wait' item, it will stop the audio or wait until the file ends or duration has passed.
Seven items for playback:
- Play Init initialization of the playback audio device, this should be placed at the beginning of an experiment.
Foreground:
- Play starts the playback of audio, it will play the entire audio file or will stop after the set duration has passed before continuing to the next item in the experiment.
Background:
-
Play Start starts the playback of audio, it will directly advance to the next item in the experiment.
-
Play Wait waits until the thread from 'Play Start' is finished (end of audio or surpassing the duration) before advancing to the next item in the experiment.
-
Play Stop sends a stop signal to the 'Play Start' thread to stop immediately and checks if the thread has finished.
-
Play Pause pauses playback of audio.
-
Play Resume resumes playback of audio.
Seven items for recording:
- Record Init initialization of the recording audio device, this should be placed at the beginning of an experiment.
Foreground:
- Record starts the recording of audio, it will record for the set duration before continuing to the next item in the experiment.
Background:
-
Record Start starts the recording of audio, it will directly advance to the next item in the experiment.
-
Record Wait waits until the thread from 'Record Start' is finished (surpassing the duration) before advancing to the next item in the experiment.
-
Record Stop sends a stop signal to the 'Record Start' thread to stop immediately and checks if the thread has finished.
-
Record Pause pauses recording of audio.
-
Record Resume resumes recording of audio.
Variables in the log file ([kind] is play or record):
- Init items: audio_low_latency_[kind]_module, _device_name, _period_size, _period_time, _period_time_exact, _bitdepth, _samplewidth, _samplerate and _channels; with PyAlsaAudio also _buffer_size, _periods and buffer_time; and audio_low_latency[kind]_soundcard (see below).
- Play, record and start items: the timestamps time_stimulus_onset_[item_name] and time_stimulus_offset_[item_name] (no offset in dummy mode).
- Keys: audio_low_latency_[kind]key_presses and audio_low_latency[kind]key_timestamps (play and record items), audio_low_latency[kind]start_key_presses and audio_low_latency[kind]_start_key_timestamps (start items), separated by ';'.
- Play and play start items: wav_duration and wait_to_finish (in ms; wait_to_finish not in dummy mode).
The sound card (audio_low_latency_[kind]_soundcard) is found as follows:
- Linux (PyAlsaAudio, and the "(hw:X,Y)" devices of SoundDevice and PyAudio): the codec of an onboard (HD Audio) device, e.g. "Realtek ALC1220", else the name of the card, e.g. "MOTU M2", from /proc/asound. Devices that are not on a sound card, such as "default" with a sound server, "pipewire" or "null", give "unknown".
- Windows and macOS (SoundDevice and PyAudio): the device name, e.g. "Speakers (Realtek(R) Audio)".
- In dummy mode: "dummy mode".
Known bugs:
- Recording with the PyAudio module does not seem to work at the moment
License
This software is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License 3. The full license should be included in the file COPYING, or can be obtained from:
This plug-in contains works of others. Icons are derivatives of the Faience icon theme, Faenza icon theme and Papirus icon theme.
Documentation
Installation instructions and documentation on OpenSesame are available on the documentation website:
1 maintainer
Metadata
1 maintainer
Release files for opensesame-plugin-audio-low-latency 12.0.2
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| File | Size | Uploaded | Provenance | |
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| opensesame_plugin_audio_low_latency-12.0.2-py3-none-any.whl | Python 3 | none | any | Details |
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Release files / opensesame_plugin_audio_low_latency-12.0.2.tar.gz
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