Configuration¶

The config module contains many attributes that modify MSAF’s behavior. Many of these attributes are consulted during the import of the msaf module and many are assumed to be read-only.

As a rule, the attributes in this module should not be modified by user code.

MSAF’s code comes with default values for these attributes, but you can override them from your .msafrc file, and override those values in turn by the MSAF_FLAGS environment variable.

The order of precedence is:

an assignment to msaf.config.<property>
an assignment in MSAF_FLAGS
an assignment in the .msafrc file (or the file indicated in MSAFRC)

You can print out the current/effective configuration at any time by printing msaf.config. For example, to see a list of all active configuration variables, type this from the command-line:

python -c 'import msaf; print(msaf.config)' | less

Environment Variables¶

MSAF_FLAGS¶

This is a list of comma-delimited key=value pairs that control MSAF’s behavior.

For example, in bash, you can override your MSAFRC defaults for <myscript>.py by typing this:

MSAF_FLAGS='sample_rate=11025,n_fft=2048' python <myscript>.py

If a value is defined several times in MSAF_FLAGS, the right-most definition is used. So, for instance, if MSAF_FLAGS='sample_rate=44100, sample_rate=22050', then 22050 Hz will be used as the default sampling rate.

MSAFRC¶

The location[s] of the .msafrc file[s] in ConfigParser format. It defaults to $HOME/.msafrc. On Windows, it defaults to $HOME/.msafrc:$HOME/.msafrc.txt to make Windows users’ life easier.

Here is the .msafrc equivalent to the MSAF_FLAGS in the example above:

[global]
sample_rate = 11025
n_fft = 2048

[cqt]
bins = 96

Configuration attributes that are available directly in config (e.g. config.sample_rate, config.hop_size) should be defined in the [global] section. Attributes from a subsection of config (e.g. config.cqt.bins, config.mfcc.n_mels) should be defined in their corresponding section (e.g. [cqt], [mfcc]).

Multiple configuration files can be specified by separating them with ‘:’ characters (as in $PATH). Multiple configuration files will be merged, with later (right-most) files taking priority over earlier files in the case that multiple files specify values for a common configuration option. For example, to override system-wide settings with personal ones, set MSAFRC=/etc/msafrc:~/.msafrc.

Config Attributes¶

The list below describes some of the more common and important flags that you might want to use. For the complete list (including documentation), import MSAF and print the config variable, as in:

python -c 'import msaf; print(msaf.config)' | less

default_bound_id¶

String value: either 'sf', 'cnmf', 'foote', 'olda', 'scluster', 'gt'

This is the identifier for the boundary algorithm to use. If 'gt' is used the reference boundaries will be read instead of computed. See the Algorithms section for more information.

default_label_id¶

String value: either None, 'cnmf', 'fmc2d', 'scluster'

This is the identifier for the label algorithm to use. If None is used, no label algorithm will be applied. See the Algorithms section for more information.

sample_rate¶

Positive int value, default: 22050

The sampling rate to apply to the actual audio. Resampling will be applied as needed.

n_fft¶

Positive power of two int value, default: 4096

The size of the Fast Fourier Transform, in number of samples.

hop_size¶

Positive power of two int value, default: 1024

The size of the hop size, which should be smaller than the n_fft value, such that overlap is allowed.

features_tmp_file¶

String value, default '.features_msaf_tmp.json'

The file name in which temporary feature files will be stored when working in single file mode.