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I'm relatively new to using PAMGuard, and I'm not sure how to address that I can't hear the .wav files that make up my dataset on the application.

The audio files were recorded in the Salish Sea using a SoundTrap hydrophone, with a sampling rate of 48 kHz and using a single channel. I have five field recordings (.wav files) ranging from 45 MB to 1.89 GB. When I load the files into PAMGuard and run the Whistle and Moan detector, I cannot hear the audio file at all no matter how high I turn the volume on my computer. The spectrogram plugin also does not work for these files, namely that no spectrogram is loaded while the file is playing. As such, the whistle and moan detector hasn't worked for these files or recorded any hits, despite the fact that there are confirmed transient killer whale whistles on them.

I've read the PAMGuard User's Manual in detail and haven't had these issues with the sample web tutorial audio files (i.e whistleSurvey). With the PAMGuard tutorial files, I can hear them just fine and the spectrogram works perfectly as the detector is running.

I've listened to the files on a sound player app (Groove Music) to confirm that they're not just silent, they do all contain audio of the field site.

Has anyone heard of these issues before, and/or have an idea of how to fix it so that the whistle and moan detector can run properly on my files?

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2 Answers 2

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Are you experiencing the problem when you are analyzing the recordings or in Viewer mode? If in Viewer mode then you have make sure you load the recordings using the Audio Data Acquisition - Use offline files (and the folder with the recordings).

If the problem is when you are running the analysis in PamguardBeta have you made sure under Sound Output that you have the Channel 0 ticked and the right settings for output device type and output device name? Seems like that could be a problem if you haven't set it correctly.

Maybe you can send a screenshot, it would help a lot?

Jure

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Thank you for the early suggestions! The issue ended up being fixed primarily by treating some unrelated technical issues. On the spectrogram: I restarted my laptop several times and reloaded the detector modules from scratch, and then suddenly the Whistle and Moan Detector (and accompanying spectrogram) were working as if there had never been an issue. I didn't do anything different with the modules to my knowledge, so I'm liable to credit the restart as a fix. For the audio: I did go to Sound Output, and it turned out that the audio only wasn't working because the default output device was "Primary Sound Driver". Changing the "Output device name" to my speakers was all it took to have the file audio come through just fine.

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