trackswitch.js: A Versatile Web-Based Audio Player for Presenting Scientific Results

Abstract

trackswitch.js is a versatile web-based audio player that enables researchers to conveniently present examples and results from scientific audio processing applications. Based on a multitrack architecture, trackswitch.js allows a listener to seamlessly switch between multiple audio tracks, while synchronously indicating the playback position within images associated to the audio tracks. These images may correspond to feature representations such as spectrograms or to visualizations of annotations such as structural boundaries or musical note information. The provided switching and playback functionalities are simple yet useful tools for analyzing, navigating, understanding, and evaluating results obtained from audio processing algorithms. Furthermore, trackswitch.js is an easily extendible and manageable software tool, designed for non-expert developers and unexperienced users. Offering a small but useful selection of options and buttons, trackswitch.js requires only basic knowledge to implement a versatile range of components for web-based audio demonstrators and user interfaces. Besides introducing the underlying techniques and the main functionalities of trackswitch.js we provide several use cases that indicate the flexibility and usability of our software for different audio- related research areas.