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We have a screening set up to record from singing male songbirds and need a way to continuously record their cages 24/7 but only save files when sound is detected (we have a post-processing step that can then detect song from that set of wav files after). We had been using Sound Analysis Pro 2011 (SAP) for this but it has seemingly spontaneously stopped working on most of our computers so I was wondering if there was any other free software with the same functionality. I saw there was another similar thread but I think they were looking for something to replace different/more complex features of SAP.

Alternatively, if anyone else has had issues (that they were able to resolve) with the SAP recorder suddenly not being able to recognize mic channels on a Dell OptiPlex 7090 please let me know.

But in short what I'm looking for is: Free software that can record from ~8 audio channels simultaneously 24/7, only saving files when sound is detected.

Thanks!

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    $\begingroup$ Hi Arnold, as you pointed out this question resembles a preexisting question. Please modify the question topic and content to clearly differentiate from the pre-existing one, this will help prevent down votes/closing of the question. $\endgroup$
    – Thejasvi
    Commented Jul 20, 2022 at 20:32
  • $\begingroup$ Arnold-- can you spell out SAP for those who may not be familiar? Also, please link to the similar thread in your question-- it may be helpful for other users to refer to. Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – Shannon
    Commented Jul 20, 2022 at 22:27

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PAMGuard can record up to 32 channels and has a real time trigger record function that can be used with most of the detection and classification modules. I'm not sure exactly what kind of sounds you are looking at, but I suspect the GPL or whistle and moan (this is marine software originally) would work for bird song. The sound recorder module has the triggers built in or alternatively you could use the clip generator module which has similar functionality.

Hardware wise PAMGuard supports ASIO soundcard and National Instruments DAQ devices along with most standard sound cards.

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    $\begingroup$ If it's birdsong, then yes, PAMGuard's whistle and moan detector will probably detect enough of the song to trigger a recording even though it is not in any way optimised for bird song analysis. You should record a day's data and check that it really is getting the sounds you're looking for. You'll need an acquisition module, an FFT Module, a Sound Recorder Module and a Whistle and Moan detector. You can configure how big a buffer to record prior to the song triggering the detector and how long it should run for afterwards. $\endgroup$
    – Doug Gillespie
    Commented Jul 21, 2022 at 15:40

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