What is the easiest way to read wav-files using Python [summary]?

Question

I want to use Python to access a wav-file and write its content in a form which allows me to analyze it (let's say arrays).

I heard that "audiolab" is a suitable tool for that (it transforms numpy arrays into wav and vica versa).
I have installed the "audiolab" but I had a problem with the version of numpy (I could not "from numpy.testing import Tester"). I had 1.1.1. version of numpy.
I have installed a newer version on numpy (1.4.0). But then I got a new set of errors:

Traceback (most recent call last): File "test.py", line 7, in import scikits.audiolab File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/scikits/audiolab/init.py", line 25, in from pysndfile import formatinfo, sndfile File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/scikits/audiolab/pysndfile/init.py", line 1, in from _sndfile import Sndfile, Format, available_file_formats, available_encodings File "numpy.pxd", line 30, in scikits.audiolab.pysndfile._sndfile (scikits/audiolab/pysndfile/_sndfile.c:9632) ValueError: numpy.dtype does not appear to be the correct type object
I gave up to use audiolab and thought that I can use "wave" package to read in a wav-file. I asked a question about that but people recommended to use scipy instead. OK, I decided to focus on scipy (I have 0.6.0. version).
But when I tried to do the following:

from scipy.io import wavfile
x = wavfile.read('/usr/share/sounds/purple/receive.wav')

I get the following:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test3.py", line 4, in <module>
    from scipy.io import wavfile
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/scipy/io/__init__.py", line 23, in <module>
    from numpy.testing import NumpyTest
ImportError: cannot import name NumpyTest

So, I gave up to use scipy. Can I use just wave package? I do not need much. I just need to have content of wav-file in human readable format and than I will figure out what to do with that.

How is this different from your previous questions on the exact same topic? — S.Lott
– S.Lott, Commented Jan 14, 2010 at 12:00
audiolab is great. Try to get that working. Make sure you have installed the packages libsndfile and setuptools. Did you follow Sec. 2.4 in the manual? — Steve Tjoa
– Steve Tjoa, Commented Jan 15, 2010 at 19:21
Did you get a newer version of Scipy when you upgraded your version of Numpy? I use wave for reading in wave files like James Roth suggested below, but if you want to use Scipy you should check to see if your version of Scipy is up to date. From the error messages that you are getting I am guessing that it is not. — Justin Peel
– Justin Peel, Commented Apr 8, 2010 at 18:26
Have you seen this? stackoverflow.com/questions/2060628/… Time stamp is (more) recent, March 2011. — Ellie K
– Ellie K, Commented Oct 7, 2011 at 7:39

James Roth · Accepted Answer · 2010-04-08 18:05:21Z

13

Have you tried the wave module? It has fewer dependencies:

http://docs.python.org/library/wave.html

def everyOther (v, offset=0):
   return [v[i] for i in range(offset, len(v), 2)]

def wavLoad (fname):
   wav = wave.open (fname, "r")
   (nchannels, sampwidth, framerate, nframes, comptype, compname) = wav.getparams ()
   frames = wav.readframes (nframes * nchannels)
   out = struct.unpack_from ("%dh" % nframes * nchannels, frames)

   # Convert 2 channles to numpy arrays
   if nchannels == 2:
       left = array (list (everyOther (out, 0)))
       right = array (list  (everyOther (out, 1)))
   else:
       left = array (out)
       right = left

answered Apr 8, 2010 at 18:05

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James Roth

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2 Comments

I answer wrong - have fun Over a year ago

Instead of everyOther, use out[0::2] and out[1::2].

endolith Over a year ago

Combine this with external conversion tools to open other formats. assembla.com/code/freesound/git/nodes/freesound/utils/…

Jiaaro · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-05 22:58:44Z

8

I wrote a simple wrapper over the wave module in the std lib. it's called pydub and it has a method for reading samples from the audio data as ints.

>>> from pydub import AudioSegment
>>> song = AudioSegment.from_wav("your_song.wav")
<pydub.audio_segment.AudioSegment at 0x1068868d0>

>>> # This song is stereo
>>> song.channels
2

>>> # get the 5000th "frame" in the song
>>> frame = song.get_frame(5000)

>>> sample_left, sample_right = frame[:2], frame[2:]
>>> def sample_to_int(sample): 
        return int(sample.encode("hex"), 16)

>>> sample_to_int(sample_left)
8448

>>> sample_to_int(sample_right)
9984

Hopefully this helps

answered Dec 5, 2012 at 22:58

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Jiaaro

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3 revs, 3 users 82% · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-18 02:04:55Z

5

This is good enough for me

import numpy as np
x = np.fromfile(open('song.wav'),np.int16)[24:]

It ignores the first 24 values, because that's not audio, it the header.

Also, if the file was stereo, your channels will have alternating indexes, So I usually just reduce it to mono with Audacity first.

edited Jan 18, 2014 at 2:04

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3 revs, 3 users 82%
Nathan

1 Comment

ayke Over a year ago

This works if you know the file format (channel count, sample rate) and know there's no weird stuff in the file (like multiple data blocks - see ccrma.stanford.edu/courses/422/projects/WaveFormat).

GregWillden · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-20 01:46:21Z

5

You can also use the wave module along with the numpy.fromstring() function to convert it to an array

import wave
import numpy

fp = wave.open('test.wav')
nchan = fp.getnchannels()
N = fp.getnframes()
dstr = fp.readframes(N*nchan)
data = numpy.fromstring(dstr, numpy.int16)
data = numpy.reshape(data, (-1,nchan))

answered Jun 20, 2014 at 1:46

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GregWillden

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2 revs · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 11:46:49Z

2

After trying so many things that does not work I used the decode library from Use (Python) Gstreamer to decode audio (to PCM data) and build a function to parse the raw pcm data into a scipy array.

It's nice and can open any audio file that gstreamer can open: http://gist.github.com/592776 (see Test and the end of the file for usage info)

edited May 23, 2017 at 11:46

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2 revs
Dominik

Comments

2 revs · Accepted Answer · 2010-03-17 15:13:11Z

1

audiolab is the best way, but it doesn't work in every environment and the developer's not working on it. I'm still using Python 2.5 so I can use it.

Did you install libsndfile?

edited Mar 17, 2010 at 15:13

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2 revs
endolith

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Matthias · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-17 11:56:21Z

1

audiolab seems to be not maintained anymore, you should try PySoundFile.

Installation is simple:

pip install PySoundFile --user

And reading a sound file as well:

import soundfile as sf
x, fs = sf.read('/usr/share/sounds/purple/receive.wav')

Have a look at this overview about different Python libraries for handling sound files.

answered Sep 17, 2015 at 11:56

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Matthias

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TimmyGee · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-18 11:35:49Z

0

pydub provides an even easier solution without any dependencies needing to be installed (for wav files). I'm currently using this method in production without any issues.

from pydub import AudioSegment
awesome_song = AudioSegment.from_wav('awesome_song.wav')
print('Duration in seconds is {}'.format(awesome_song.duration_seconds))

answered Aug 18, 2017 at 11:35

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TimmyGee

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