While not specifically interacting with Signalyze, the two applications discussed in this document should be in every Signalyzer's toolbox. They provide us with batch-processing capabiities that will take the tedium out of processing large batches of signals.

FileConverter

FileConverter is a file conversion utility that comes bundled with Signalyze. Using FileConverter's batch processing feature is straight-forward; it is activated from the standard convert dialog:

To batch process files, click on the Convert Folder checkbox in the lower left of the window (see the cursor in the figure above). FileConverter will then convert all of the signals in the folder listed at the top of the dialog (in this case, Signals) instead of just one file that may be selected in the dialog window.

SoundApp

The freeware SoundAppª by Norman Franke also provides a batch processing feature for upsampling or downsampling files, or converting between other file formats (FileConverter converts files between formats popular in signal processing; SoundApp provides other formats that are popular in the music and web industries).

The trick to batch processing with SoundApp is that first the files must be loaded into a play list. Once they are there, they can be played back or converted as a group.

To create a new play list, select New Play List (command-n) from the File menu:

This will result in a new play list being opened:

To add sounds of any supported format to the play list, select Add... from the File menu, and then shift-click on the names of the desired files in the dialog:

You should then be presented with the Add dialog, where you can add sounds to the new play list:

Once you have selected the desired files in the Add dialog and then clicked the Add button, the files are added to the play list:

After setting the desired parameters for the new files in SoundApp's Convert menu, clicking on the Convert All button with cause all of the files to be converted to the chosen parameters--these include file format, encoding, sampling rate, channels (left, right or stereo), and bit depth (8- or 16-bit). In addition you can Play All files to preview them, and Save the play list so you can open it again later.

Macro utilities

There is one more way for us to achieve batch processing capabilities--macro/keyboard utilities such as OneClick, QuicKeys, and KeyQuencer. For more information on these, please see the separate macro utilities document.