Thank you, John.  This info is extremely helpful. :)

 

Julia McCaffrey, MS, CCC-SLP

Speech Language Pathologist III

Cedars Sinai ALS Clinic

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Julia,

 

I have run in to trouble incorporating AAC, AIFF, WMA, M4A and FLAC formats.    There are others I have not tried as we really have stuck to .wav without any difficulty.     The troubles I ran into were related to them being not  accepted in some SGDs or being imported into itunes for storage OR use with an app such as Predictable (although they are now moving away from itunes storage and import of audio files).

 

BTW, the other consideration it the baud rate.    I have not exhausted all options BUT I can tell you that every baud rate ACCEPT for 44/16 has given me some kind of trouble at least once.

 

On a related note, someone with whom I did not work called me to tell me they could not upload their banked message files to our beta Messagebanking tool housed at MyTobiiDDynavox.    Turns out they were using a baud rate lower than 44/16 and the system would not recognize it.    I’ve not fully explored all the potential options and successes/problems there yet but I figured I would pass that hiccup along since I’ve learned it.

 

Best,

John

 

 

John M. Costello

                                   @costello_j

 

 

 

 

 

 

Awesome.  Huge thanks for the quick reply,  John.  I will share this info with my message banking clients!

 

One quick follow up question – do you know if there are specific audio file formats that clients should always AVOID using when message banking?  For example, audio file formats that you have found to be extremely difficult to use later with an SGD?  My challenge is some individuals have started recordings long before they met me, and they have used all sorts of different recording tools and formats…

 

Julia McCaffrey, MS, CCC-SLP

Speech Language Pathologist III

Cedars Sinai ALS Clinic

 

 

 

 

 

From the time we started Message Banking, we have wanted the highest quality recording.  The reasons are numerous including:

 

1.  If done proactively, the end technology (should the messages be needed) has not been identified.   Given, in our experience some people have message banked over years before their messages are used, we want to be cautious and be sure the recording format used fits the technology of the future.
2. If tech of the future requires high quality recordings, .wav will fit the bill.  You can make .wav a lower quality but making a lower quality into a .wav (by changing the tag) does not really increase the quality
3. We now have several people who are incorporating their banked messages in to their second or third technology where by a current SGD has been used for four years and now a new SGD is acquired.    We’ve been able to incorporate the banked messages from seven years ago into each technology without trouble.
4. Some recording qualities cannot be incorporated into certain technologies.   The .wav format gives you maximum flexibility and will not require a technology identified at the time of need by a good clinical feature match to be eliminated because it will not accommodate the banked file format.
5. With the now hundreds of people who have message banked hundreds or even several thousand messages each through our program over more than a decade, we have had no difficulty merging the .wav files into the tech of choice.  Depending on the SGD it has sometimes been more labor intensive than others.   Fortunately there is a growing trend with developers/manufacturers to support auto population.

 

 

Best,

John

 

John M. Costello

                                   @costello_j

 

 

Is it still true that .WAV files are the best audio format to use when completing message banking?  If so, why?  Clients often ask me this, and I generally answer that it has to do with compression and sound quality recorded in a WAV file (less compressed/better quality) versus MP3 or MP4 (more compressed/poorer quality).

 

I recognize that a sound engineer may be able to hear the difference between a WAV and MP3/MP4 recording, but is it a difference that truly matters for SGD speech output intelligibility? 

 

Thanks in advance. 

 

Julia McCaffrey, MS, CCC-SLP

Speech Language Pathologist III

Cedars Sinai ALS Clinic

 

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