Music · Art · Technology Lab
The Music · Art · Technology Lab is a research-creation environment dedicated to experimental sound practices at the intersection of music, artistic inquiry, and computational technology. The lab explores how analytical tools, algorithmic processes, and emerging technologies can be transformed into creative instruments for composition, sound art, and interdisciplinary research.
Building on the foundations of Praat AudioTools, the lab integrates scientific audio analysis with creative sound processing, synthesis, and data-driven artistic workflows. Emphasis is placed on transforming measurement, signal analysis, and machine listening into expressive musical and artistic outcomes.
The lab supports projects in computational sound design, analysis-based composition, spectral and granular techniques, interactive audio systems, and AI-assisted sonic creativity. Through research, artistic production, software development, and pedagogy, the lab aims to expand contemporary approaches to sound as both a scientific phenomenon and an artistic medium.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Shai_Cohen
Overview
Praat AudioTools is a collection of more than 300 scripts for audio processing, analysis, and synthesis in Praat.
The plugin adds a unified AudioTools menu to Praat, offering a wide range of effects, filters, transformations, and creative analysis-driven tools for sound design and experimental composition.
Developed for composers, sound designers, and researchers, the toolkit extends Praat's phonetic analysis environment into a complete offline sound laboratory — enabling processes such as granular synthesis, adaptive filtering, spectral manipulation, fractal reverbs, multichannel spatialisation, and machine learning-driven audio effects.
Installation
- Download or clone this repository.
- git clone https://github.com/ShaiCohen-ops/Praat-plugin_AudioTools.git
- Locate your Praat plugins folder.
- Depending on your operating system, Praat looks for plugins here:
- Windows: C:\Users<YourName>\Praat\plugins</code>
- macOS: /Library/Preferences/Praat/plugins/
- Linux: /.praat-dir/plugins/
Important⚠️ Rename the folder after downloading or cloning, ensure that the folder name is exactly:plugin_AudioTools. If the folder name differs, Praat will not display the “AudioTools” menu. Copy the renamed folder plugin_AudioTools into your Praat plugins directory.
Restart Praat. After restarting, you should see a new AudioTools menu in the main Praat window.
Scripts Documentation
Interactive HTML documentation for all 254 scripts:
https://mashav.com/sha/Praat%20AudioTools/
The documentation includes searchable guides with detailed parameter descriptions, usage examples, and technical explanations for each script.
Key Features
- Offline, object-centric workflow
- Edit PitchTiers, FormantGrids, TextGrids, and Tables as compositional scores. Work in an edit → render → listen loop with full reproducibility.
- 250+ processes across categories
- Analysis, delay and temporal, distortion and dynamics, spectral and filter (FFT and LPC), modulation, pitch, convolution and reverb, spatial, and synthesis.
- Analysis-driven mappings
- Map pitch, formants and bandwidths, intensity, spectral centroid and flatness, zero-crossing rate, jitter, shimmer, and HNR directly to transformation parameters.
- Flagship scripts (ready to use)
- Adaptive Grain Cloud Synthesis (formant and spectral descriptor control of grain density, duration, and scatter)
- 8-Channel Spatial Canon / Speed Deviations (prosody to space: F0, intensity, speaking rate, jitter)
- Reproducible by design
- Scriptable parameters, seeds captured, versioned presets, optional ablation variants for method comparison.
- Interoperability for composition
- Cross-platform
Citation
If you use this toolkit in academic work, please cite:
Cohen, S. (2025). Praat AudioTools: An Offline Analysis–Resynthesis Toolkit for Experimental Composition. GitHub Repository: https://github.com/ShaiCohen-ops/Praat-plugin_AudioTools
License
MIT License
Acknowledgements
Praat by Paul Boersma & David Weenink, University of Amsterdam. This plugin repurposes Praat's scientific tools for creative sound design and electroacoustic composition. Special thanks to the Praat community and the Department of Music at Bar-Ilan University for supporting this research.