Helvox

A simple recording tool for Swiss German speech data.

About

Helvox is an open-source GUI application for recording audio data in Swiss German dialects.
It provides a simple and efficient interface for collecting high-quality speech recordings, making it ideal for linguistic research, dataset creation, and dialect analysis.

Features

• Record and save high-quality audio clips (lossless)
• Tailored for Swiss German dialect data collection
• Built with Python and modern audio libraries
• Cross-platform (developed primarily for Windows)
• Automatic voice activity detection for consistent padding
• Fully local and offline data collection

Input Format

Example:

[
    {
        "id": "bb9ebca5-09b3-4cad-bad3-65d7f9969589",
        "de": "Hallo Welt.",
        "ch_ag": "Hallo Wält.",
        "ch_be": "Hallo Wäut."
    },
    {
        "id": "6f971113-eac5-4279-a6bb-da736384e9b0",
        "de": "Ich war heute draussen.",
        "ch_ag": "Ich bi hüt dusse gsi.",
        "ch_be": "I bi hüt dussä gsi"
    }
]

Development Setup

To run Helvox locally in development mode:

pip install -e .
python -m helvox

or just simply run:

helvox

This will start the Helvox GUI application.

Build Instructions (Windows)

To create a standalone executable for Windows:

pip install -e ".[build]"
pyinstaller windows.spec

After building, your packaged application will be available at:

dist/Helvox.exe

Build Instructions (macOS)

To create a macOS app bundle:

pip install -e ".[build]"
pyinstaller macos.spec

After building, the packaged application will be available at:

dist/Helvox.app

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. If you’d like to improve Helvox or add new features:

1. Fork this repository
2. Create a new branch: git checkout -b feature/my-feature
3. Commit your changes: git commit -m "Add my feature"
4. Push to your fork: git push origin feature/my-feature
5. Open a Pull Request

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgements

Helvox was built to support data collection and research in Swiss German linguistics (e.g., speech-to-text, text-to-speech). Special thanks to all contributors and researchers working on dialect preservation and computational linguistics.