Parrot

Parrot is a web app for easily recording throwaway audio clips.

It was originally intended for pronunciation practice but may find other uses.

How to Use Parrot

First, plug in the input cable by clicking or swiping down on it.

You will be asked to allow Parrot (“zkhrv.com”) to use your microphone, which is required to enable audio recording.

When the input cable is unplugged (as it is initially or if you decide to unplug it), audio recording is not possible.
To record an audio clip …
- in “press to start/stop” mode
  
  … press the button. Audio will start recording the moment the button is pressed down. You can release the button and audio will continue to be recorded. To stop recording, press the button again.
- in “hold to record” mode (default)
  
  … hold the button. Audio will record until you release the button.
If you have a keyboard, you can also use the r key on your keyboard the same way as the button. (You can remap or disable it below.)

Keyboard shortcut for recording, using the shortcut key key.

⚠️ Starting a new recording erases and overwrites any existing recording.
To play back a recorded audio clip …
- in “press to start/stop” mode (default)
  
  … press the button. Audio will start playing back the moment the button is pressed down. You can release the button and audio will continue to be played back. To stop playback, press the button again.
- in “hold to play back” mode
  
  … hold the button. Audio will play back until you release the button.
If you have a keyboard, you can also use the f key on your keyboard the same way as the button. (You can remap or disable it below.)

Keyboard shortcut for playback, using the shortcut key key.

You can play back your recorded audio clip as many times as you want.
Change the audio source (the microphone used to record)

When the input cable is plugged in, a menu appears showing the current audio source (initially, the default one). Click/tap the menu to see a list of available audio sources. Select one of the options to use it as the audio source.

⚠️ After changing the audio source, the “record” and “play back” buttons don’t work right away. Click/tap anywhere on the screen first, then they will work as expected. (This is not a problem if you use the keyboard shortcuts.)

There is no way to save a recorded audio clip with Parrot—that’s not what it’s for.

Wait, but Why?

One day I was reading through the comments on a Hacker News post about the launch of a new language-learning SaaS focused on speaking. My takeaway was that there are still opportunities to create better language-learning software, especially for helping learners achieve correct pronunciation.

“Ooh, I know!” I thought. One thing I learned firsthand is that you can think you are pronouncing something right, but hearing yourself can quickly reveal how incorrect your pronunciation really is. Once you are aware of this, you can repeatedly record and listen to yourself, adjusting your pronunciation until you get it right. (Well, assuming you know what right sounds like.)

Of course, there is no shortage of ways to record and listen to yourself; any audio recording app will do. You probably already have one on your device. These apps are fine if you want to keep whatever you record. When practicing pronunciation, you usually don’t want to keep dozens of short, throwaway recordings. You may find existing audio recording apps frustrating, because you will have to go back and delete each recording.

Enter Parrot: purpose-built to make recording throwaway audio clips easy. Record, listen (as many times as you want), record again. Nothing is saved, so you can try many pronunciation attempts without worrying about the mess of recordings you’re leaving behind. With Parrot, no mess left behind. (Unlike with real parrots, which leave quite the mess.)

I mentioned that you need to know the correct pronunciation for the record-and-listen technique to work. That may not be the case if you don’t have a good ear for the language (yet). Imagine there was an app that gave real-time feedback on your pronunciation and how to improve it.

At this point I would attempt to charm you with a would-be project of mine—Pronounce—that did just that. However, further research into computer-assisted pronunciation training showed that there are already solutions for this (and that their effectiveness is not a sure thing). Some pointers for those interested:

BoldVoice for American. Looks almost exactly like what I wanted to make.
ELSA Speak for some Englishes. The product seems decent, but their website is hot garbage.
SpeechSuper seems like a nice API that supports a handful of languages.
If you manage to navigate your way through the broken maze that is anything made by Microsoft, you will find that they offer a pronunciation assessment API through Azure that supports two dozen languages. As for how well it works, well, remember that it’s made by Microsoft.

Credits

Parrot caw sounds

Adapted from Alain Malengreau, XC537393. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/537393.
Original audio licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
To Mom for testing the toggle switches. My click-only toggle switches looked realistic enough that she, naturally, tried to swipe up/down on them, but that didn’t do anything. Of course the switches should be swipeable on touchscreens! So, now they are. Thanks, Mom!
To my sister for stating that my buttons-and-switches control scheme is confusing (and that she really doesn’t like the “old-school,” skeuomorphic user interface). In response, I added some visual indicators to make it clearer (and wrote a thorough usage guide). Thanks, sis! (The music gear inspired user interface is staying, though.)
To Dad for testing Parrot on a slightly older iPad. It turns out that container-type: size is very useful, but isn’t supported on pre-2023 browsers. “Well, that’s no good.” So, off I go converting the layout to well-supported units. Hurray for backward compatibility! Thanks, Dad!
To the Waves Abbey Road J37 Tape plugin for lending me that dark gray-blue-green color for the device frame. (It’s hsl(187deg 15% 32%).)

License

A stripped, unbranded version of Parrot—henceforth Free Parrot—is available as Free Software.

Source tarball: free-parrot.tar.xz (176 kB; includes a standalone, single HTML file version)

In Free Parrot:

Code is licensed under the GNU GPLv3 or any later version.
Images, audio, and text are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

The above license statements apply only to the files found inside the Free Parrot source tarball.

Even though most of the code is identical, this hosted version of Parrot, at zkhrv.com/parrot, contains images, styles, and text that are not covered by the above license statements.