Stimulus Playlists¶

Playlists define the trial-level output for the DAQ service. They are tab-delimited text files.

Playlist Format¶

The parser expects these columns in this order:

stimFileName	silencePre	silencePost	delayPost	intensity	freq	MODE

Example:

stimFileName	silencePre	silencePost	intensity	freq
superstimulus.wav	1000	1000	1.0	100
SIN_100_0_3000	1000	1000	1.0	100
[mediocre_stim.wav, MIRROR_LED]	1000	1000	1.0	100
[PUL_5_10_10_0, SIN_200_0_2000]	1000	1000	1.0	100
[SIN_100_0_3000, SIN_200_0_2000]	[1000, 2000]	[2000, 1000]	[1.0, 2.0]	[100, 200]

Column meanings:

stimFileName: WAV/HDF5 stimulus filename or a generated stimulus name.
silencePre: Silence before the stimulus, in milliseconds.
silencePost: Silence after the stimulus, in milliseconds.
delayPost: Parsed for compatibility with existing playlists.
intensity: Output multiplier. For calibrated sounds or LEDs, use the unit convention established by the rig calibration.
freq: Key into the attenuation table in ethoconfig.yml.
MODE: Parsed for compatibility with existing playlists.

Each row defines one trial. The trial duration is silencePre, plus the longest stimulus across output channels, plus silencePost. Shorter output channels are zero-padded to match the longest channel.

Multi-Channel Stimulation¶

For multi-channel output, write list values in brackets:

[stim_on_chan1, stim_on_chan2, stim_on_chan3]

Channel order follows the DAQ protocol: analog outputs first, then digital outputs. For example, if the protocol defines two analog outputs and one digital output, the playlist order is:

[first_analog_output, second_analog_output, digital_output]

Other columns may also use bracketed lists, such as [1.0, 0.5] for channel-specific intensity. If a list has fewer entries than stimFileName, the last provided value is repeated for the remaining channels.

Generated Stimulus Names¶

Stimulus names can point to files in stimfolder, or they can request generated signals:

SIN_frequency_phase_duration: Generate a sine wave. Frequency is in Hz, phase is in radians, and duration is in milliseconds.
PUL_pulseDur_pulsePau_pulseNumber_pulseDelay: Generate a pulse train. Time fields are in milliseconds.
MIRROR_LED: Generate a pulse train on this channel aligned to another non-MIRROR_LED channel. Protocols using this should define ledamp.
CLOCK_pulseDur_pulsePau: Generate a continuous clock signal for the full trial.
SI_START: Set the channel high for the first samples of a trial to start ScanImage acquisition.
SI_STOP: Set the channel high near the end of the final trial to stop ScanImage acquisition.
SI_NEXT: Set the channel high near the end of each trial to advance ScanImage files.

CLOCK, SI_START, SI_STOP, and SI_NEXT are aligned to the trial edges, not to silencePre or silencePost.