Articulate Assistant Advanced™ starts up in a demonstration project containing data that can be analysed but it is not possible to record new data in this project.

The button will be inactive.

To be able to record and activate the record button you must do four things:

1. Either create a new project or open a project that you previously created.
2. Either copy prompts from the current directory or create your own Prompt List.
3. Create a Client/participant.
4. Make sure an audio recording device is enabled.

To create a new project select the “File” menu and select Create/Copy project…

1. By default the projects root directory is the directory from which the application is run. However, you may prefer to specify a separate location for data storage, perhaps in another folder or on another disk drive, dedicated to storing data.

2. to select the Project root or type or paste the path into the Projects Root edit box.

3. To remember this location the next time you create or open a project, click the button.

4. After setting the Project root, complete the ‘Project Name’ using alphanumeric characters. This will also be the name of the folder in which all the project data is stored. You may also specify the author and any details describing the project.

5. Click . You will be asked if you want to copy the Prompt List from the current project. It is easiest to click OK the first time you create a project. The prompts from the demo project will be copied to your new project.

6. However, if you prefer not to add unwanted prompts to your new project and prefer to create your own Prompt List, click No. Then click Yes when asked if you want to open the Prompt List editor.

^{You must have at least one prompt to be able to make a recording.}

7. To quickly create a promptlist either type or paste text into the top right panel corresponding to the default Prompt List, click and then when prompted to save. See following section for more advanced Prompt List options.

8. After importing or creating a promptlist you will be prompted to create the name of the initial client in this project. As a minimum you must enter text in the “family Name” box or the Ref box. Other information is optional.

9. You must have a soundcard enabled to enable recording. Every AAA recording must have an audio data stream as it provides the time base for all the other data streams. If you are recording from a laptop you will have a choice of the built-in soundcard and microphone and the external soundcard (e.g. Focusrite Scarlett Solo). Usually the external soundcard will be selected by Windows automatically but it is good practice to confirm that the recording and playback is set to the external soundcard if you are intending to record with it.

^{If you are using the external soundcard to record you MUST use the external soundcard to playback otherwise ultrasonic data will not synchronise correctly. If the laptop is used to playback then the system will temporarily halt recording while it swaps soundcard to playback. This results in critical loss of initial ultrasonic pulses which results in mis-assignment of ultrasound images relative to the audio.}

To start a recording, select a prompt text by clicking on an empty box or the prompt text in the list bottom left. The button should now be active. Click to start recording. You will hear a beep and the prompt screen will turn green. When the speaker has finished speaking you can click the button to stop the recording before the default duration.

11. The settings dialogue defines the Maximum Duration of the recording which defaults to 6 seconds. i.e After 6 seconds the recording will automatically stop and save. If you need to record for longer you can change this timer.

In the Settings dialog, Maximum Attempts defines the maximum number of recordings that can be made for a single prompt for a client across all sessions. It defaults to 256. i.e. more than 4 hours of 6 second recordings.

Play WAV file defaults to playing a BEEP at the start of the recording. This is a useful indicator for the participant to start speaking. It is recommended to use the default BEEP.wav as this file is optimised for triggering the SyncBrightUp unit used for synchronising video.

^{You can set the maximum duration of individual prompts by adding a special suffix to the prompt. Just add a space and then the time in seconds in square brackets after the prompt. For example, the prompt "Hello world." could be set to a 3 second limit by changing it to "Hello world. [3]". This takes priority over the maximum duration set in the AAA options.}

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Wondering what to do next? You can read our friendly guide about how to synchronise your data, measure the movement of anatomy, do data analysis, export your data and present your findings.