R Interface to Vamp Audio Analysis Plugins • ReVAMP

ReVAMP provides an R interface to the Vamp audio analysis plugin system developed by Queen Mary University of London’s Centre for Digital Music. It enables R users to load and run Vamp plugins for tasks like tempo detection, onset detection, spectral analysis, and feature extraction.

Features

Comprehensive Plugin Support: Access to 100+ Vamp plugins for audio analysis
Data Frame Output: Results returned as R data frames for easy analysis and visualization

Installation

Install R Package

Install from source:

# Install dependencies
install.packages(c("Rcpp", "tuneR"))

# Install ReVAMP
install.packages("path/to/ReVAMP_1.0.tar.gz", repos = NULL, type = "source")

Or install with devtools:

devtools::install_github("edwbaker/ReVAMP")

Installing Vamp Plugins

ReVAMP requires external Vamp plugins to be installed.

Quick Start

library(ReVAMP)
library(tuneR)

# Load audio file
audio <- readWave("myaudio.wav")

# Run amplitude follower and get results as data frame
result <- runPlugin(
  myname = "analysis",
  soname = "vamp-example-plugins",
  id = "amplitudefollower",
  output = "amplitude",
  outputNo = 0,
  wave = audio,
  outfilename = "",  # Empty string = no file output
  useFrames = FALSE  # Use timestamps in seconds
)

# Examine results
str(result)
#> 'data.frame':    1292 obs. of  4 variables:
#>  $ timestamp: num  0.000 0.023 0.046 0.070 0.093 ...
#>  $ duration : num  NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA ...
#>  $ value    : num  22866 22896 22735 22531 22380 ...
#>  $ label    : chr  "" "" "" "" ...

# Plot amplitude over time
plot(result$timestamp, result$value, type = "l",
     xlab = "Time (s)", ylab = "Amplitude",
     main = "Audio Amplitude")

Common Use Cases

Onset Detection

Detect note onsets in audio:

onsets <- runPlugin(
  myname = "analysis",
  soname = "vamp-aubio-plugins",
  id = "aubioonset",
  output = "onsets",
  outputNo = 0,
  wave = audio,
  outfilename = "",
  useFrames = FALSE
)

# View onset times
print(onsets$timestamp)

# Plot onsets on waveform
plot(audio)
abline(v = onsets$timestamp * audio@samp.rate, col = "red", lty = 2)

Tempo Detection

Estimate tempo (BPM):

tempo <- runPlugin(
  myname = "analysis",
  soname = "vamp-aubio-plugins",
  id = "aubiotempo",
  output = "tempo",
  outputNo = 0,
  wave = audio,
  outfilename = "",
  useFrames = FALSE
)

cat("Estimated tempo:", mean(tempo$value), "BPM\n")

Spectral Centroid

Analyze spectral characteristics:

centroid <- runPlugin(
  myname = "analysis",
  soname = "vamp-example-plugins",
  id = "spectralcentroid",
  output = "logcentroid",
  outputNo = 0,
  wave = audio,
  outfilename = "",
  useFrames = FALSE
)

plot(centroid$timestamp, centroid$value, type = "l",
     xlab = "Time (s)", ylab = "Log Centroid",
     main = "Spectral Centroid Over Time")

Package Information

# Get Vamp API/SDK version info
vampInfo()

# List plugin search paths
vampPaths()

# List all installed plugins with details
plugins <- vampPlugins()
View(plugins)

# Get parameters for a specific plugin
params <- vampPluginParams("vamp-aubio-plugins:aubioonset")
View(params)

Architecture

ReVAMP consists of three layers:

Vamp Plugin SDK (inst/vamp/): C++ libraries defining the Vamp plugin interface
Vamp Host SDK (src/Plugin*.cpp): C++ host implementation that loads and manages plugins
R Interface (src/R_host.cpp): Rcpp bindings exposing functionality to R

Key features: - PluginLoader: Discovers and loads Vamp plugins from system directories - Plugin Adapters: Automatically handle channel mixing, domain conversion (time/frequency), and buffering - DataFrame Output: Collects features in memory and returns structured data to R

Audio Data Flow

Input: tuneR::Wave S4 objects from R
Conversion: Extracted to float buffers in C++
Processing: Fed block-by-block to Vamp plugins with automatic adaptation
Output: Collected in memory and returned as DataFrame to R
Optional File: Can also write to CSV file if outfilename is provided

Development

The package uses standard R/Rcpp development tools:

library(devtools)

# Make changes to code...

# Regenerate documentation
roxygen2::roxygenise()

# Install locally
install()

# Run tests
test()

# Run R CMD check
check()

References

Vamp Plugins: https://www.vamp-plugins.org/
Cannam, C., Landone, C., & Sandler, M. (2010). Sonic Visualiser: An open source application for viewing, analysing, and annotating music audio files. Proceedings of the 18th ACM International Conference on Multimedia, 1467-1468.

License

GPL (>= 2)

Author

Ed Baker ed@ebaker.me.uk

ReVAMP - R Interface to Vamp Audio Analysis Plugins