WaveSurfer is an Open Source tool for sound visualization and manipulation. It has been designed to suit both novice and advanced users. WaveSurfer has a simple and logical user interface that provides functionality in an intuitive way and which can be adapted to different tasks. It can be used as a stand-alone tool for a wide range of tasks in speech research and education.

Typical applications are speech/sound analysis and sound annotation/transcription. WaveSurfer can also serve as a platform for more advanced/specialized applications. This is accomplished either through extending the WaveSurfer application with new custom plug-ins or by embedding WaveSurfer visualization components in other applications.

Features:

• Customizable - users can create their own configurations
• Localization support
• Extensible - new functionality can be added through a plugin architecture
• Embeddable - WaveSurfer can be used as a widget in custom applications
• Transcription file formats - reads, and writes HTK (and MLF), TIMIT, ESPS/Waves+, and Phondat
• Support for encodings and Unicode
• Multi-platform - Linux, Windows, OS X