An Innovative Voice Analyzer “VA” Smart Phone Program for Quantitative Analysis of Voice Quality

Objective: The ‘VA’ Windows program that we developed in 2011 for analyzing voice quality quantitatively uses zerocross picking to find individual basic pitch periods. It has a simple and user-friendly user interface and high accuracy. This program determines the fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer, PPQ, APQ, and signal-to-noise ratio (Ra). It needs only a general-purpose Windows PC, USB audio interface and a microphone. The aim of this study is to improve the version of the VA Windows program in English and to develop a VA smart phone program to allow wider use of objective acoustic analysis. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Sustained vowel /a/ sounds from 40 subjects without evident vocal problems, and 40 subjects with slight hoarseness, were examined. We compared the analyzed data with data from other software (MDVP and Praat). For a comparison between VA for Windows and VA for a smart phone, sustained vowel /a/ sounds from six subjects without hoarseness were recorded with each system simultaneously. Results: The normal voice and slightly hoarse voice data analyzed with VA showed a high correlation with most parameters from both MDVP and Praat. There was a strong correlation between the Windows and smart phone versions of VA in terms of the fundamental frequency and Ra. Conclusions: The results showed that the VA software was not inferior to the other acoustic analysis software tested. The simple and easy to use smart phone version may facilitate our goal of creating an objective, widely available method to evaluate hoarseness.