Comparison of acoustic parameter measurements derived from multi-dimensional voice program (MDVP) and PRAAT

Abstract

MDVP is widely utilized for acoustic analysis but rather expensive. On the other hand, Praat is a software available for free download. In this study, we analyzed 60 normal voice samples (30 male and 30 female) and 73 pathological voice samples (41 male and 32 female) of the sustained vowel /a/ using both MDVP and Praat. Each sample was digitized and a stable portion approximately 1 second in duration was stored for analysis. These were fed to the two softwares to measure fundamental frequency (F0), jitter, shimmer, and harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR). The authors compared the measurements of these parameters as derived by the two softwares. All parameters showed a linear correlation between respective measurements. F0 showed agreement between the measurements. Jitter as measured by Praat was significantly smaller than that measured by MDVP, and HNR as measured by Praat showed a significantly greater value than that measured by MDVP. No significant difference was found between shimmer measurements. These results suggested that normal values of acoustic parameters should be examined on the basis of the software used by each laboratory. Furthermore, it is recommended that whenever acoustic measurements are presented, the environment of the voice recording and analysis, including the specific facilities for voice recording and software utilized, should be clearly indicated.