| | | | || | | | || | | | | | | ///#|| | | | || //# //# | |//# | | | | //#//#| | | || | || || //# | //# || ||//# || | | ||| | || //####|///#|//#//#////# |////# | //# | ////#////#| || | || __|||__|__||_#///#|//#//#//#//#//#//#//#//#_|_//#_|_//#//#//#//#__||__|_||____ || | ||##//#//#//#//#//#//#//#//#//#| |//#| |//#//#//#//#| || | | || | //#//#//#//#//#//#//#//#//#//#| |//#| |//#//#//#//# || | #///###///###///##//#//##////#| |/////##////#////## | |#### #### |#### ###### #####| ######|########## | | | ||| | ||| | | | | | | | | Version 1.0 May 2, 1992 by Damien M. Jones dmj software PSC 8 Box 657 APO AE 09109 Sound Lab 1.0 Page 2 --- Copyright Sound Lab and this manual are Copyright 1992 Damien M. Jones, All Rights Reserved. You may not modify this program in any way; however, you may copy it as you wish, provided all of the files listed in READTHIS.1ST are included. You may not charge for these copies, except reasonable charges to cover the cost of the media it is distributed on (as in Public Domain/Shareware distributors). This charge should not exceed $10. --- Shareware This program is Shareware. If you like it and use it, please send $20 to the address on the front cover. In return for registering you will receive a printed manual, information on how to use digitized sound in your own programs (GFA BASIC, C, and assembly), and free disk updates. Updates to the manual (which usually occur only with major revisions) will be available for modest ($5 or less) cost. If you got this program through a Public Domain/Shareware distributor, you haven't paid for the program; you've just paid the distributor to put the program on a disk and send it to you. Please show your support by registering. --- Disclaimer I am not in any way responsible for damage to your equipment, reputation, or mental or physical health caused by the use or misuse of this program. --- About This Manual The text for this manual was created entirely with ST Writer Elite 4.2. --- About the Program Sound Lab was written mostly in GFA BASIC (over 10,000 lines), with the high-speed editing routines (almost 2,000 lines) in assembly. The graphics were designed with a custom paint program. --- Feedback It's always been my experience that the best improvements to software always come from its users. My beta testers reinforced that belief. So if you have any comments or questions, please let me know! Sound Lab 1.0 Page 3 --- Table of Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . 4 What Is Digitized Sound? . . . . . . . 4 Using This Manual . . . . . . . . . 5 The Basics . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Installing Your Digitzer Cartridge . . . . . 6 Loading (or Copying) Sound Lab . . . . . 6 The Main Screen . . . . . . . . . 7 "Help" and "Quit" . . . . . . . . 7 Loading and Playing Sounds . . . . . . . 8 File Formats . . . . . . . . . . 9 Recording Sounds . . . . . . . . . 10 Saving Sounds . . . . . . . . . 10 Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Marking Blocks . . . . . . . . . 12 Playing and Recording a Block . . . . . . 12 "Hide Blk", "Zoom In", and "Zoom Out" . . . 12 "Cut", "Copy", "Insert", and "Play Buf" . . . 13 "Remove" and "Trim" . . . . . . . . 15 Looping . . . . . . . . . . . 15 "Overlay" . . . . . . . . . . 16 Inserting or Overlaying a File . . . . . . 17 Loading or Saving the Buffer . . . . . . 17 Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 "Clear" and "Gap" . . . . . . . . 18 "Volume" . . . . . . . . . . . 18 "Fade" . . . . . . . . . . . 19 "Echo" . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 "Reverse" . . . . . . . . . . 20 "Convert" . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 /Info/ . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 /Rename File/ . . . . . . . . . 22 /Delete File(s)/ . . . . . . . . . 22 /Create Folder/ . . . . . . . . . 22 /Remove Folder/ . . . . . . . . . 23 /Free Space/ . . . . . . . . . . 23 /Format Disk/ . . . . . . . . . . 23 /Quit/ . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Tips for Using Sound Lab . . . . . . . . 24 Moving Dialogs . . . . . . . . . 24 Bypassing the Title Screen . . . . . . . 24 Choosing a Sampling Rate . . . . . . . 24 "High Bit" . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Loading and Saving Blocks - Partial Files . . 25 Loading .BAK Files . . . . . . . . . 26 Echo Effects . . . . . . . . . . 26 Background Sounds . . . . . . . . . 26 Preferences . . . . . . . . . . 27 Using the _Fileselector_ . . . . . . . . 29 If Something Goes Wrong... . . . . . . . 32 Quick Reference & Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . 34 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Sound Lab 1.0 Page 4 -------- Introduction Digitized sound: you've undoubtedly heard it. These days you can find digitized sound in games, demos, and even music. It's the only way to twist the ST's sound chip into producing more than three limited tones. If you're not interested in how digitized sound works (or if you already know) then please skip this next section. --- What is Digitized Sound? Before explaining digitized sound, let me explain how a speaker works. As the electric current provided to the speaker changes, the speaker itself moves in and out. This movement makes the air next to the speaker move as well, creating sound waves that we can actually hear. Computers, however, don't record things (like the current provided to a speaker) in a steady stream. They handle things in a digital fashion--lots of little bits that, when put together, make up the whole. Whereas an analog tape records the current to the speaker in a continuous wave, digitized sound records the current many times per second. The more times per second you record the current, the better your approximation of the actual sound wave. Compact discs work like that; they record the current 44250 times per second; this is so fast (and so precise) that it sounds even better than audio tape (which is an analog recording). The quality of digitized sound is measured in three ways: sampling rate, resolution, and the number of channels. Sampling rate refers to how often you sample--or record--the current applied to the speaker. This is usually specified in Hz (times per second) or KHz (how many thousands of times per second). Thus a CD has a sampling rate of 44250Hz, or 44.25KHz. Usually a sampling rate of 7.5KHz to 10KHz is adequate; 20KHz can be used for exceptionally high quality. The second way to measure the quality of digitized sound is resolution. This refers to how precisely the current to the speaker is measured. A CD has a resolution of 16 bits--the current has 65,536 possible values. A home computer (as in the ST) usually uses 8-bit resolution, measuring the same range of current as a CD, but with only 256 values. You'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference in most sounds. The third way to measure sound quality is the number of channels. This is simply how many sounds are played simultaneously. Compact discs are in stereo--two channels (like the STe). Most digitized sound is mono--one channel, although this is beginning to change. Now that you know basically how digitized sound works, let me explain what Sound Lab is capable of. You can record and playback at sampling rates from 4.9KHz to 30.72KHz, on a Sound Lab 1.0 Page 5 single (mono) channel at 8-bit resolution. This is perfectly sufficient for use on the ST. --- Using This Manual Sound Lab makes extensive use of the mouse, alerts, dialogs, and menus. Throughout this manual, buttons will always be referred to like this: "Button". Dialogs will always be referred to like this: _Dialog_. Menu items will be referred to like this: /Menu/. The manual has been organized as a tutorial; you should be able to read it straight through. For help with a specific item, use the Table of Contents or the Index to find it. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 6 -------- The Basics This section will get you started using Sound Lab. It covers installing cartridges, loading and copying Sound Lab, the main screen, loading and playing sounds, file formats, recording sounds, and saving sounds. --- Installing Your Digitizer What? You don't have a sound digitizer? Well, go get one! This software works with both the ST Replay cartridge and Pandaal's DaataSound cartridge. Others have not been tested. To install your cartridge, turn your ST off. Insert your cartridge into the ST's cartridge port, label side up. It should go in firmly. When fully inserted, turn your ST back on. You can connect the input jack (the only jack on the DaataSound) to the output of any small sound source--the headphone jack of a portable cassette recorder or CD player are good examples. Unless you want to see smoke curling from the innards of your computer, you should never connect the input jack to the high-power output of a stereo or other amplifier; doing so may damage your stereo, digitizer, and ST. To remove your cartridge (which may be necessary on occasion) just turn off your ST, gently pull the cartridge straight out (don't wiggle it) and turn your ST back on. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU INSERT OR REMOVE YOUR CARTRIDGE WITH THE ST'S POWER ON. Doing so can very, very easily damage your ST, as well as the cartridge. For further information, consult the instructions for your cartridge. --- Loading (or Copying) Sound Lab There's nothing really to this. Just double-click on SOUNDLAB.TOS from any ST resolution. If you want to copy Sound Lab to another folder (as in, on your hard drive) you'll need not only SOUNDLAB.TOS but also these files: SOUNDLAB.COL Dialog information for MEDIUM resolution. If you want to run the program using a color monitor, you'll need this file. (Sound Lab switches to medium res if run from low res.) SOUNDLAB.MON Dialog information for HIGH resolution. If you want to run the program using a monochrome monitor, you'll need this file. SOUNDLAB.HLP The help file. If it's not present, there will be no online help. SOUNDLAB.PRF This is the preferences file; without it, all of Sound Lab's options will be reset to the default settings. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 7 If there isn't enough memory for Sound Lab to run, or if it can't find the appropriate data file for the resolution you're in, it will tell you what went wrong and then exit to the Desktop. If nothing goes wrong, the program will load and display the title screen. Press any key, and you're ready to begin. It is possible to put Sound Lab in an AUTO folder. If you're using a 512K machine, this is recommended, since it will give you more memory for using samples. To run Sound Lab from an AUTO folder, rename SOUNDLAB.TOS to SOUNDLAB.PRG and copy it into the AUTO folder. You can put any other things in there that you want, but remember that you must put them in before you put SOUNDLAB.PRG in, or they won't run until after you exit Sound Lab. Also remember that other AUTO folder programs will probably consume valuable memory. All the other files (.COL, .MON, .HLP, and .PRF) should go in the root directory. To run Sound Lab, just boot the disk. If you use Sound Lab with a monochrome monitor, you obviously won't see any of the colors described in the manual. Light blue on a color monitor corresponds to medium grey on a monochrome monitor; dark blue shows as dark grey. --- The Main Screen At this point (program loaded, ready to use) I'll give you a tour of the screen, since there's quite a bit here. At the top you'll see the program's name, version, and completion date. You'll also see, over to the right, the "Memory size"; this is just how big Sound Lab's area for editing samples is. Below this title area is a large window, covering about three-fourths of the screen. In the title bar you will see some information. Inside the window you'll see a black line across the middle; this is where you can see a visual representation of the sample. The bottom border of the window has a slider, used to move around the sample. Below the window are twenty-four buttons, which are your main control panel for using Sound Lab. --- "Help" and "Quit" Of the twenty-four buttons at the bottom of the main screen, two are very important. The first is "Help", the top button on the far right. You can either click this or press the HELP key to access the online help; should the online help fail to give you the information you want (which it shouldn't), you can always refer to the manual. You can press HELP anywhere. The other important button is "Quit", the bottom button in the right-most column. Select this to exit the program. You'll be asked if you're sure; if you are, click "Yes", or click "No" if you've changed your mind. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 8 You can also find the "Quit" option in the menus. To access the menus, just move the mouse pointer into the "Sound Lab" box at the top left of the screen. The menus will appear under the mouse. You'll find Quit at the bottom of the File/Disk menu. Please note that if you have any desk accessories loaded, you will not be able to access them; Sound Lab is a TOS program (I bet you forgot that) and accessories only work from GEM (.PRG) programs. From here on, click on all buttons with the left mouse button, unless specifically told to do otherwise. Some of the buttons at the bottom of the screen have dual purposes. To see the names of those buttons, move the mouse to the very bottom of the screen, so it's not over any of the buttons. Then hold down the right mouse buttons. You'll see several of the buttons change. These are the functions that are accessed with the right mouse button. Use it just like you would the left. --- Loading and Playing Samples Digitized sound is what Sound Lab is all about, so it wouldn't hurt to know how to load some samples in. To load a sample into Sound Lab, click on "Load" (seventh column). The _Fileselector_ dialog will appear, allowing you to select a sample to load. You can load .SPL, .SAM, and .AVR files into Sound Lab. (Only these types will appear in the _Fileselector_.) Just click on the sample you want, then click on "Okay", or double-click on the filename. (See the _Fileselector_ section for more help; see the File Formats section for more information about the different file types.) Once the sample is loaded, you'll see several things change. First, the sample window's title bar will change to show you information about the file you've just loaded. The name will change, as will the file size, offset, zoom level, speed, and block size. You'll also see the sample displayed in the window. Now that it's loaded, let's make sure it's at the correct speed. If you loaded an .AVR type file, Sound Lab will automatically change the speed for you. The other file types, .SAM and .SPL, don't tell the proper speed of the sample, so you have to guess. Click on "Speed" (second column). A dialog will appear with a large number of buttons: eleven with numbers, four labeled "x2", "x«", "Tone Up", and "Tone Down", and four more labeled "Convert", "Play", "Okay", and "Cancel". Between the top set of buttons and the bottom set is a slider and a text field. The text field in this dialog shows the current speed, in KHz. You can change this speed in many ways; the easiest to click on one of the eleven preset speed buttons. These Sound Lab 1.0 Page 9 include some ST Replay 4 speeds, some Macintosh speeds, and some STe speeds. You can double or halve the speed by clicking on the "x2" or "x«" buttons. With the "Tone Up" and "Tone Down" buttons, you can change the speed to the next musical tone up or down. You can adjust the speed with the slider, or you can enter the speed you want directly into the text field. The digitized sound routines used by Sound Lab (and most every other sample editor or player) use the timers built into the ST. Because of this, not every speed can be used. Sound Lab will automatically round off any speed you enter to the nearest speed available. Also, Sound Lab only allows speeds from 4.915KHz to 30.72KHz. After setting your speed, you can click on the "Play" button inside the dialog to hear the sample at the new speed. You can either wait for it to finish by itself, or press the space bar or mouse button to stop the sound early. If you want to keep the new speed, click on "Okay"; otherwise you can click on "Cancel". Don't worry about the "Convert" button for now. Well, the speed has been set. You can now use the "Play" button on the main screen to play the sound, if you want. You can use the space bar or mouse button here as well to stop the sound. If you do stop it early, a flashing vertical bar will show you where it stopped (this will be handy later). The bar will disappear as soon as you click on another button, press a key to activate another button, or select a menu item. --- File Formats Sound Lab recognizes three types of digitized sound files. They are .AVR, .SPL, and .SAM. The .AVR file type is the kind used by the newer ST Replay software. If you want to save the speed of the sound, as well as any looping information (more on that later), you'll need to save in .AVR format, as only this type of file records that information. For the same reason, Sound Lab also sets this information when you load an .AVR file. Usually you will use .AVR format files when loading or saving. The .SPL file type is called "raw data". It contains only the sound, the whole sound, and nothing but the sound. This is a good format if you know the speed of the sound, and you want to include it in your own programs. The last type, .SAM, is similar to .SPL. The difference is that .SAM is signed data, whereas .SPL is unsigned. Signed data is stored as a series of bytes, ranging from -128 to Sound Lab 1.0 Page 10 127. Unsigned data records the same information in the range 0 to 255. If you're not sure which to use, just try one; if the sample ends up sounding very noisy, use the other. --- Recording Samples If you have a digitizer cartridge, this section will tell you how to use Sound Lab to record sounds from it. It's not difficult at all. First of all, you need to insure that the volume is properly adjusted. Click on "Monitor" (first column). You'll see a moving display right over the sample window. Adjust the volume on your sound source so that the display shows strong movement, but isn't clipped much at the top or bottom of the display. Clipped points will stick briefly to the top and bottom of the display, making it easy to see when clipping occurs. A little clipping is all right, but a lot of clipping will result in distorted sounds. Press any key or mouse button to exit Monitor. If you want to hear the quality of your sound before recording it, click on "Monitor" with the RIGHT mouse button; you'll see it change to "Listen", which will then begin. Now you'll be able to hear exactly what the digitized sound would be like, without having to actually record anything. This is a good way to find out which speed to record at. Press the space bar or mouse button to exit Listen. What you're really interested in, though, is recording sound. To do this, click on the "Record" (first column) button. An alert will appear, asking whether to wait for the sound, start recording, or cancel. Selecting "Wait" will cause Sound Lab to wait for an incoming sound before beginning to record. The mouse pointer will flash while Sound Lab is waiting for a sound. Selecting "Start" will start recording right away. "Cancel" will abort the record. Recording, naturally enough, erases the previous sample. It's like recording over an old audio tape. Sound Lab will stop recording as soon as the sound fills up the memory; how quickly this happens depends on your selected speed and the amount of memory you have. You can also stop the recording by pressing the space bar or mouse button. You'll hear the sound while it's being recorded, as with Listen. For some help on choosing a sampling rate to record at, see the Tips section. --- Saving Sounds After recording a sound, you'll probably want to save it. This is simple. Just click on "Save" (seventh column) and the _Fileselector_ will appear. Enter the filename you want to use for your file, and click on "Okay". "Cancel" will, of Sound Lab 1.0 Page 11 course, abort the save. If nothing went wrong, your file will be saved to disk. There are three very simple things that might go wrong, but aren't really a big deal. The first thing that might go wrong is that the disk is full. Since samples can get very large, this can happen a lot; if it does, you'll have to use another disk. If you don't have another formatted disk handy, see the Format Disk section for information on how to format a disk. The second thing that might go wrong is that you might have left the write-protect tab in the wrong place. You can't save to a disk that's write-protected; either select "Cancel" from the alert, or fix the problem and select "Retry". The third thing that might go wrong is that you tried to save your sample with a name that's already being used. The alert that appears will give you three options: "Erase", "Rename", and "Cancel". The first option, "Erase", simply erases the old file and saves your new file with that name. The second option, "Rename", is a bit more complicated; it renames the old file so that it ends in .BAK (erasing any file that had the .BAK name), and then saves your file with the name you requested. An example will make this clearer; if you try to save MCHAMMER.AVR, and there is already an MCHAMMER.AVR on the disk, the alert will appear; you select "Rename". The MCHAMMER.AVR on the disk is renamed to MCHAMMER.BAK, and any MCHAMMER.BAK that was there is erased. Then your new sound is saved as MCHAMMER.AVR. Keep in mind that since samples can be very large, you can run out of room _very_ quickly if you keep a lot of backup (.BAK) files, even if you're using a hard drive. The "Cancel" button from the alert cancels the save, of course. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 12 -------- Blocks Sound Lab is more than just a sound loader, player, recorder, and saver. It's also a sound editor. You can cut and paste sections of sound much like you would cut and paste text in a word processor; you can also do much more. --- Marking Blocks In order to do anything with your sound, you must tell Sound Lab which part of the sound to use. To do this, you will need to mark off a block of the sound. This is really quite easy to do. First, load up a sound. Then move the mouse pointer into the sample window, right over the sample. Click the left mouse button. All of the sound to the left of where you clicked has now turned light blue; the remainder, to the right, has stayed black. The black part of the sample is your block; what you've just done is to position the left block marker with the left mouse button. Logically enough, you position the right block marker with the right mouse button. Just click the right button with the mouse pointer somewhere between your left block marker (the boundary between the light blue and black sample) and the right edge of the screen. Voila! You now have a small block marked. You've probably noticed that a vertical bar appears while you're holding down the mouse button. This bar will follow the mouse pointer as long as the pointer is inside the sample window. This can help you position the block markers more accurately. --- Playing and Recording a Block Just about every single function that does anything in Sound Lab only works on the currently marked block. "Play" and "Record" are no exceptions. After marking off a block, click on "Play". Notice that you only hear the part you've marked? This makes it very easy to isolate a particular sound from a longer sound. "Record" works the same way--it will only record over the section of block that you have marked. --- "Hide Blk", "Zoom In", and "Zoom Out" Although blocks are very useful (you'll find out just how useful shortly), marking them can be a nuisance. So these three buttons have been included to make things simpler. The first button, "Hide Blk" (third column), simply repositions your block markers at the beginning and end of the entire sample. After clicking on it, you'll notice that it seems to stick in place; if you click on it again, it will come unstuck, and restore your block markers to their previous positions. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 13 The other buttons, "Zoom In" and "Zoom Out" (second column), change the magnification of the sample in the window. Normally, the magnification is set to "Max", which means the entire sample is displayed in the window, regardless of its size. With large samples, this can make the accurate positioning of the block markers difficult. "Zoom In" comes to the rescue; just click on it. Now you've switched to 16x magnification, in which each pixel across the screen represents 16 bytes of digitized sound. The slider at the bottom of the screen will now change to reflect how much of the sample is actually being displayed; you can move it around, and the screen will display the corresponding portion of your sample. You can click "Zoom In" again, to zoom in to 8x; then again, to 4x, and then 2x and 1x, in which each pixel on the screen represents exactly one byte of digitized sound. You can click "Zoom Out" again to back out a zoom level. At the very bottom of the window, just above the slider, you'll notice that a very thin line changes as you mark your blocks. It starts out as a solid white line, but after marking a block, the white portion shrinks--roughly to the same place on the screen as your block markers! This white line shows you how much of your sample has been marked as your block. It's sized to match the slider right below it. When you're at maximum magnification, it's not needed, since you can always see both ends of your block. When you start zooming in, though, you won't always be able to see your block markers; you can use that thin line as a guide to positioning the slider. That way, you can use maximum magnification to quickly place your block markers in the general area you want them; then zoom in, move the slider, and fine-tune your positioning. Zooming in and out all the time can get repetitive. Usually 1x is the best for positioning block markers, but you have to hit "Zoom In" five times (with a reasonably large sample) to get to it! That's where "Min Zoom" and "Max Zoom" come in. You've probably noticed that those buttons don't appear at the bottom of the screen. That's because you need to use the right mouse button to get to them. They're "under" the "Zoom In" and "Zoom Out" buttons; just click on "Zoom In" with the right mouse button, and it will change to "Min Zoom". This will take you to 1x magnification, without seeing any of the in-between zoom levels. Using the same technique, click on "Zoom Out" with the right button to get "Max Zoom", which takes you back to maximum magnification. --- "Cut", "Copy", and "Insert" Now that you know how to mark blocks, let's do something with them. Your basic block functions are "Cut", "Copy", and "Insert". Sound Lab 1.0 Page 14 "Cut" takes your block out of the sample and stores it in the buffer. This buffer is a section of memory marked off for blocks that have been cut and copied; for the rest of these instructions, it will always be called the buffer. Once "Cut" has taken out your block, the rest of your sample is moved down to fill in the gap. An example should make this completely clear. Let's say you have a sample of George Bush saying "Read my lips." You set your block markers so that only "my" is marked. Click on "Cut". That chunk of sound has just disappeared! Click on "Hide Blk" so that the entire sample is marked; now click on "Play". George Bush now says "Read lips." The "Copy" button works very similarly to the "Cut" button. It also copies your block into the buffer, but unlike "Cut", it does not remove the block from the sample. Since it doesn't remove the block, it is possible that you won't have enough memory to make a copy of the block. If this happens, an alert will appear to tell you. Once you have a block stored in the buffer, you can then "Insert" it. That will take the block and insert it where your left block marker is. Going back to our George Bush example, let's say your block is "my". You "Copy" the block to the buffer, and then "Insert" it. Your left block marker was still before "my", so when you insert "my", George Bush says "Read my my lips." I had no idea he had a stuttering problem. As with "Copy", it is possible that you don't have enough memory for an "Insert". When this happens, an alert will appear, giving you four options. Before explaining them, let me explain that the buffer, where cut or copied blocks are stored, is the last part of the memory area. If you have a memory size of 400K, then you can have up to 400K of digitized sound in memory. If you load a 200K sample into memory, that leaves 200K for cutting and copying blocks. And if you were to cut a 20K chunk from that 200K sample, it would be stored in the _last_ 20K of the memory. That explained, the options presented when you have insufficient memory for an "Insert" are "Lose Sample", "Lose Buffer", "Insert to Fit", and "Cancel". "Lose Sample" means that the entire buffer will be inserted, but the end of your sample (whatever doesn't fit) will be lost. "Lose Buffer" means that the entire buffer will be inserted, and all of your sound will be saved, but the start of the sample in the buffer will be lost. "Insert to Fit" will insert as much of the buffer as will fit without losing the buffer. "Cancel", of course, aborts the "Insert". Phew! I realize that took a bit of explaining, but hopefully it's much better than having Sound Lab say "Insufficient Memory for Insert" and then do nothing. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 15 After cutting or copying a block into the buffer, you may want to play the buffer again, to remind yourself what's in there. To do this, click on "Play" with the right mouse button. You'll see it change to "Play Buf", and the buffer will be played, instead of the block. --- "Remove" and "Trim" These are two buttons you may find useful. They are both in the fifth column, but "Trim" is "under" the "Remove" button; by this, I mean you use the right mouse button to select it, instead of the left. "Remove" is very similar to "Cut". The only difference is that the block is not stored in the buffer; it's just removed from the sample. This is much faster, since then Sound Lab doesn't have to rearrange the data. Since this can't be undone, you will be asked if you are sure. "Trim" is a special function, useful after a sound has been recorded. Often you'll find "pops" at the beginning and end of sounds. Using "Cut" or "Remove" to get rid of them would require that you isolate the pops, by carefully positioning the block markers, and cutting them out. Instead, you can position the block markers around the sound you want to keep. Then click on "Trim" (by clicking on "Remove" with the right mouse button) and everything before and after your marked block will disappear. Since this, like "Remove", cannot be undone, you will be asked if you are sure. --- Looping Looping is a very useful technique when you use digitized sound in music. What it does is let you choose a part of your sample to play repeatedly. So if you had a short sample of some stringed instruments playing a single note, you could loop the last part of the sound, so that they seemed to play the note forever. Looping is most useful in this fashion. To loop a portion of your sound, mark the part you want to loop with the block markers. Then click on "Loop" (fifth column). An alert will appear, with four options: "Set Loop", "Reset Block", "Loop On/Off", and "Cancel". "Set Loop" is the one you want, as this will set the loop to your current block markers. You'll see your loop segment framed in a dark blue box. Click on "Play" to hear the looped sample. (While looping is on, the entire sample will be played, with looping; your block markers are ignored during "Play".) More than likely you will need to adjust your loop to remove the "pops" when the sample loops. Just move your pointers and click on "Loop" again. Select "Set Loop" again. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 16 The other options have other uses. "Reset Block" will move your block markers to the current loop settings; that way, you can mark other blocks, edit more sound, and still be able to go back to adjust your loop easily. "Loop On/Off" will turn looping on or off, without changing where the loop or block markers are. ("Set Loop" and "Reset Block" both turn looping on automatically.) "Cancel" will do nothing. If you want to save the looping information with your sample, you will need to save in .AVR format, as only this format saves the looping information. --- "Overlay" Overlaying is a technique used to superimpose one sample over another. You can use "Overlay" to take the sample stored in the buffer and overlay it onto the block. To do this, just click on "Overlay" (fourth column). And don't panic when you see the dialog. Despite its imposing look, the _Overlay_ dialog isn't that bad. At the top you will see the dialog's title; directly underneath is a large white box, showing you some waves. On the left and right sides of this box are two sliders. Underneath the box are two text fields, labeled "Block Volume" and "Buffer Volume", and four buttons labeled "Length". These are "Block", "Buffer", "Longer", and "Shorter". At the bottom are two buttons labeled "Repeat Buffer", called "Yes" and "No", and two other buttons, "Okay" and "Cancel". The large white box is the "Preview" box. This shows you some waves to give you a general idea of what will happen in the overlay. The light blue wave is your block, and the dark blue wave is your buffer. The black wave is the final result of the Overlay. These waves are not your actual sample, just representations for your convenience. When you overlay two samples, you can adjust the volume of each. Normally you'll want both at full volume, but this can sometimes cause distortions in the final sound, especially if you start with loud samples. In this case, you should lower the volume for each sample. Use the left slider to change the volume of the block; use the right slider to change the volume of the buffer. Note that you can also enter the numbers in the text fields directly. Also note that whenever you change the volumes, the Preview box is redrawn, allowing you to see the change. Underneath the box you'll see the four "Length" buttons. These let you choose how much to overlay. "Block" uses the block's length, "Buffer" uses the buffer's length, and "Longer" and "Shorter" use the longer or shorter sample. This way you don't have to worry about making your block the Sound Lab 1.0 Page 17 same size as the buffer. Below the "Length" buttons is "Repeat". If you use the "Block" as the length (or if you choose "Longer", and that ends up being the block), Sound Lab may run out of buffer sample before finishing the Overlay. Sound Lab gives you the option of starting over on the buffer (setting "Repeat" to "Yes") or using silence (setting "Repeat" to "No"). Once you've set your options, click on "Okay", and the overlay will be done. Clicking on "Cancel" will abort the Overlay. Overlays may take as much as ten seconds with long samples. --- Inserting or Overlaying a File Many times you will wish to insert or overlay a sound, and that sound isn't in memory. You can load it into the buffer and do it (see the next section), but you can also insert or overlay right from the file. To do this, click on "Insert" or "Overlay" with the right mouse button. The buttons will change to "Ins File" and "Ovly File". A fileselector will appear, allowing you to choose the file you want to use. What happens next depends on which button you used. If you clicked on "Ins File", the insert will proceed as though you had the file in the buffer. You might not have enough memory, so the same options as "Insert" will apply. If the file you insert is an .AVR type, and it's not at the same sampling rate as the rest of your sample, Sound Lab will ask you if you want to convert it. If you clicked on "Ovly File", the _Overlay_ dialog will appear. The entire file will be read when you click on "Okay", to overlay it. Everything else will proceed like a normal overlay. --- Loading or Saving the Buffer You can load or save directly to the buffer. To do this, just click on "Load" or "Save" with the right mouse button; the buttons will change to "Load Buf" and "Save Buf". Then select the file you want to load or save to. Remember that you can play the buffer by clicking on "Play Buf" (under "Play"). Sound Lab 1.0 Page 18 -------- Effects In addition to editing sounds, Sound Lab lets you modify the sound itself. These are called Effects. They let you add spice to your sounds. Remember, though, that these functions modify the sound information itself. Except where noted, you _cannot_ undo these functions. Always save your sample before adding an effect, so that you can reload it if the effect doesn't sound right. Also, effects only change the part of your sample that is marked as your block. --- "Clear" and "Gap" "Clear" (fourth column) lets you clear samples from memory. When you click on "Clear", an alert will appear with four options in it. They are "Block", "Buffer", "Everything", and "Cancel". "Block" will clear the sample between the block markers, replacing it with silence. "Buffer" will erase any sample you have stored in the buffer. "Everything" means just that--selecting this will erase everything in memory. "Cancel", of course, aborts the operation. "Gap", which is under "Clear", can be used to insert a gap into your sound. To use this, set the left block marker at the point where you want to insert the gap. Then use the right marker to show how big a gap you want; the size of the gap will be the same as the size of your block. Then click on "Gap". If there isn't enough memory to insert the gap, you'll get the same options as for "Insert". Something special happens when you select "Gap" and the left block marker is at the end of your sample. As much memory as is available will be added to the end of your sound; you should then mark how much you want to keep (including the original portion of the sample) and select "Trim". This way you can make a sample longer, leaving blank space at the end for echoes. To use this, switch to Max zoom, move the mouse pointer all the way to the right side of the screen, inside the sample window; then click the left mouse button. Then click on "Gap". All of the remaining memory will then be added to your sound. --- "Volume" This incredibly useful effect allows you to change the overall volume of a sound. First mark off which section of the sound you want to change; then click on "Volume" (fifth column). A dialog will appear, similar to the _Overlay_ dialog, but not as complicated. At the top is the same Preview box, but only one slider, on the right side of the Preview box. Also, the Preview box contains a sample, not a wave. Below is a single text field labeled "Amplify", and three buttons: "Play", "Okay", and "Cancel". Sound Lab 1.0 Page 19 Use the slider on the right to adjust the amplification. "Amplify" of 1 means keep the same volume; 0.5 is half volume, and 2 is double volume. As you change the volume with the slider, you'll see the Preview box change as well. The light blue sample is your original sound; the black sample is the sound with the volume change. Don't forget that you can also enter the volume change directly into the text field. If you want to hear the volume change, click on the "Play" button; "Okay" confirms the change, and "Cancel" aborts it. After clicking on "Okay", the change will be made to the sample. With large samples (over 500K) this may take more than five seconds, so don't panic. One thing to be careful about is boosting the volume too high. It's always a good idea to pretest the volume change with the "Play" button; when you boost the volume (especially more than double) you introduce some distortion to the sound, and using the "Play" button lets you hear that distortion before you put it into your sample. --- "Fade" This effect allows you to fade the sample in or out. To use it, mark off the part of the block you want to fade. Then click on "Fade" (sixth column). Another large dialog appears, similar to _Volume_ and _Overlay_. It has the preview box, sliders to the left and right, two text fields labeled "Start" and "End", and six buttons: "Shape", "Play", "Fade In", "Fade Out", "Okay", and "Cancel". Basically, this dialog lets you set the beginning and ending volume of the fade. The slider on the left sets the start volume, and the slider on the right sets the end volume. You can also enter the volume directly. Clicking on the "Fade In" or "Fade Out" buttons will reset the values to those defaults. "Okay" confirms the fade, and "Cancel" aborts it. The "Play" button lets you hear the fade before making it final, and the "Shape" button brings up a small dialog, allowing you to choose the shape of the fade (flat line, curve opening up, curve opening down, or S-curve). With the _Fade_ dialog, you'll see an extra item in the preview box--a light blue line showing you the fade boundaries. It's hard to express in words, but when you see it, it will be quite obvious what it's for. This also shows you the difference between the different fade shapes. As with volume, large samples take time to fade--about the same amount of time as volume. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 20 --- "Echo" Echo effects add depth to sound. They make samples sound like they're in a place, rather than in a sound room. Sound Lab allows you a great deal of control over echo effects. As with the other effects, you need to mark off your block first. Then click on "Echo" (sixth column). A dialog will appear, containing three slider/text field pairs, labeled "Echo Fade Rate", "Echo Spacing", and "Maximum Echoes". At the bottom are four buttons labeled "Load", "Save", "Okay", and "Cancel". (Echo is too complicated to "Play" before making the change final.) The three sliders and text fields allow you to set the echo. The first, "Echo Fade Rate", refers to the volume of each echo. A value of 0.5 (the default) causes each echo to be half the volume of the previous one. The second item, "Echo Spacing", refers to how far apart (in seconds) the echoes are. The last item, "Maximum Echoes", simply specifies the number of echoes to add. The bottom four buttons are in two groups. In the first group are "Load" and "Save"; these two buttons allow you to load and save the settings in the _Echo_ dialog from or to an .EKO file. Use the _Fileselector_ to specify the file. The other two, "Okay" and "Cancel", confirm or abort the adding of echoes. Echo is a complicated function. Don't be surprised if large samples take about twenty seconds to do. --- "Reverse" "Reverse" (sixth column) simply takes your marked sample and reverses it, so that when you use "Play", it will sound backwards. This is a very fast option--even large samples can take less than three seconds. If you don't like the reversed sound, you can reverse it again, thereby restoring your original sample. --- "Convert" This is not an effect, really. It's the "Convert" button in the _Speed_ dialog. To use this, just use the _Speed_ dialog to set the new speed for the sample; then click on "Convert". An alert will appear, telling you the old speed and the new speed, and asking you to confirm the conversion. Click on "Okay" to begin the conversion, "Cancel" to abort. If you clicked on "Okay", the conversion will begin. Sound Lab uses two techniques to convert samples to different sampling rates: "infinite oversampling", and linear interpolation. When you convert to a slower speed, Sound Lab Sound Lab 1.0 Page 21 uses the "infinite oversampling" technique to preserve as much of the original sound data as possible, as slower speeds have less information. Higher speeds, though, require more information; the linear interpolation technique is then used to try to "fill in" the missing data. These two techniques have two things in common: they can be slow, and they are only approximations. Samples that are noisy (like voices with "f" or "s" sounds, or music with lots of drums) will sound muffled when converted using either technique. And large samples can take almost twenty seconds to convert. To help alleviate the speed problem, Sound Lab also has special optimized routines to convert to half or double speed. These routines are very, very fast, so if you can, convert to double or half speed. If you chose to convert to a higher speed, then the sample will grow in size; you may not have enough memory for this. If you don't, Sound Lab will show you the familiar _Insert_ dialog, allowing you to choose what to do. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 22 -------- Menus Sound Lab does have menus. Usually they're tucked away, out of sight, but they can be called up very easily by moving the mouse to the top left of the screen. The menus will appear under the mouse, allowing you to select an item. If you don't want to select an item, move the mouse out of the menus and click the left mouse button. The menus will be re-hidden, and you can go back to editing your sound. These menus are not used for any of Sound Lab's sample editing functions. Rather, they contain information, and several disk utilities for your convenience. --- /Info/ The /Info/ item, in the /Desk/ menu, has a submenu attached. Just move the mouse into the submenu and select the item you want. /Sound Lab/ brings up the title screen; /Shareware/ brings up information about how to register the program; and /Thanks/ lists some people who helped in the completion of this program. What you won't find under the /Info/ item are the desk accessories. Despite appearances, Sound Lab is a TOS program, and does not cooperate with accessories in the least little bit. --- /Rename File/ This item, in the /File/Disk/ menu, allows you to rename a file. After selecting /Rename File/, the _Fileselector_ will appear, allowing you to choose which file to rename. Click on "Okay". Then a small dialog will appear, showing the old name, and allowing you to enter the new name. Click on "Okay" to confirm the change, "Cancel" to abort it. (You will not be allowed to enter an illegal filename; use other utilities to do that.) --- /Delete File(s)/ This item allows you to delete files from the disk. The _Fileselector_ will appear, allowing you to choose which file to delete. You can also enter a wildcard (like *.*). Click on "Okay". An alert will appear, showing you which file or wildcard you entered, and asking you to confirm your delete. Click on "Okay" to delete the files, or "Cancel" to abort. In either case, you will be returned to the _Fileselector_, so you can delete more files. Click on "Cancel" when you're done deleting files. --- /Create Folder/ This item allows you to create a new folder on the disk. The Sound Lab 1.0 Page 23 _Fileselector_ will appear; choose where you want to create the folder, and enter the folder's name in the "Filename" part of the _Fileselector_. Click on "Okay" to create the folder, or "Cancel" to abort. --- /Remove Folder/ This item allows you to remove an empty folder from the disk. The _Fileselector_ should be used to choose the folder; the "Filename" area of the _Fileselector_ should be left blank. If the folder is not empty, it cannot be removed; use /Delete File(s)/ to empty it. Otherwise, the folder will be removed when you click on "Okay". "Cancel", of course, aborts the operation. --- /Free Space/ This item allows you to check the free space available on any connected drive. Just move the mouse pointer to the desired drive shown in the submenu and click the button. The free space will (quickly) be checked, and then displayed, in both bytes and kilobytes. Click on "It does, does it?" when finished. --- /Format Disk/ This option allows you to format a disk. After selecting /Format Disk/, a dialog will appear, allowing you to choose drive A or B, and one or two sides. Click on "Okay" to begin formatting or "Cancel" to abort. You will be asked to confirm the format, since formatting erases everything on the disk. While the disk is being formatted, you can press any key to interrupt. All disks are formatted 80 tracks, 10 sectors per track. --- /Quit/ For completeness, I'll also mention /Quit/. It's found at the bottom of the /File/Disk/ menu, and serves the same purpose as the "Quit" button--it exits the program. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 24 -------- Tips for Using Sound Lab You now know how to use Sound Lab, mostly. What follows could be called "Miscellaneous"; it covers special features of the program, techniques you can use, and some overall advice. --- Moving Dialogs Most dialogs (_not_ alerts) can be moved in Sound Lab. To do this, click AND HOLD the left mouse button on the title bar of the dialog. Then drag the hollow rectangle to the dialog's desired position, and release the mouse button. The dialog will be moved to the new position; every time you bring up that dialog (until you exit the program) it will appear where you last positioned it. You can save the dialogs' positions when you save your preferences in the _Preferences_ dialog. --- Bypassing the Title Screen If you don't like the title screen appearing, just hold down the Alternate key while the program is loading until the main screen is displayed. If you bypass the title screen, you free up 20K of memory for samples; you can also press Alternate-Tab to free up that memory after the program is loaded. --- Choosing a Sampling Rate Whenever you record sounds, it's important to choose a sampling rate that fits your purpose. The higher the sampling rate, the higher the quality--and the more memory used. If you're using the digitized sound in other programs, good speeds are 7.68KHz (for voice) and 9.6KHz (for music). If you have the memory, though, you should record your samples at a higher speed--15.36KHz or 19.2KHz. These give you much better quality. You can then convert these samples to half their speeds. Although Sound Lab allows you to convert from any speed to any speed, you're best off sticking with doubling or halving the speeds. There are two reasons for this: first, Sound Lab has special routines for doubling/halving that are much faster than any other conversion, and second, repeated conversions can "muffle" the sound, especially if you don't always use doubling/halving. --- "High Bit" This special button allows you to convert samples from signed format to unsigned format. Sometimes you'll get a sample in a format that Sound Lab does not recognize. Usually these formats consist of a small header (a few bytes) followed by Sound Lab 1.0 Page 25 the sample in raw form. Just load up these sounds and play them. If all of the sample sounds very loud and noisy, just click on "High Bit" (seventh column) to convert it to an unsigned sample. Then play it again. If it doesn't sound any better, I can't help you; something has altered the sound. If it does sound better, except for some noise at the beginning, that's probably the header--just cut the noise out. Since Sound Lab recognizes .AVR, .SPL, and .SAM files, you probably won't need this button very often. But in case you do, it's here. --- Loading and Saving Blocks - Partial Files Sound Lab does not require you to load and save entire samples at once. You can load or save just blocks of samples. To load a block, just mark off the section of your sample that you want to load over. Then click on "Load". An alert will appear, asking if you want to load over your entire file (as with normal "Load") or just the marked block. Select "Block". Note the title of the _Fileselector_ changes to show you are loading a block, not an entire file. (If you select "File", note that Sound Lab selects the "Hide Blk" button for you.) Select the file you want to load, and click on "Okay". What happens next depends on whether your block is longer than the file. If the block is longer than the file, then the file is loaded over the first part of the block; the remainder of the block is unchanged. If the file is longer than the block, though, the _Load_Partial_ dialog will appear. This dialog allows you to choose which part of the file to load. Use the slider, or enter the Offset (the amount of bytes to skip) in the text field. Click on "Okay" to load that portion, or "Cancel" to abort the load. Whether or not you see the _Load_Partial_ dialog, the file you load may not be at the same sampling rate as the rest of your file. If it isn't, Sound Lab will ask you if you want to convert it. Sound Lab keeps track of which files have been loaded to make maximum use of the _Load_Partial_ dialog. If you load an entire file, then mark off a block, and try to load that file back, it's obviously not going to fit. But Sound Lab sees that the block filename (the one you've just chosen) is the same as the sample filename, and will automatically set the _Load_Partial_ dialog to exactly the portion of the file you have marked. So if you accidentally damage a segment of the sound, you can reload it easily. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 26 Also, if you try to load an entire sample that is too large for memory, Sound Lab will then show you the _Load_Partial_ dialog. And next time you try to load from that same file, it will automatically remember where you last loaded from. (This is separate from the block remember feature.) So you can load in consecutively different parts of a very large sample for editing work. All of this load partial business wouldn't be much good if it couldn't be saved the same way. So naturally, you can save partials as well. Just click on "Save" as you normally would; if you try to save back to the same file you loaded a partial from, Sound Lab will ask you if you want to save it back to the same place it came from. (This only works when entire files have been loaded as partials, not just blocks.) Click on "Partial" to save the file back to the proper part, "Whole" to erase the old file and save this segment as the new file, or "Cancel" to abort the save. If you click on "Save" with a block marked, Sound Lab will ask you if you want to save the entire file (as with normal "Save") or just the marked block. Select your choice; "Cancel" will, of course, abort. --- Loading .BAK Files Sound Lab has the option to rename old samples to ones with extensions of .BAK if you try to save over them. This can prevent you from accidentally erasing a sound. To re-load these samples, you should use the /Rename/ option in the /File/Disk/ menu to rename the file to its proper extension (.AVR, .SPL, or .SAM), or else Sound Lab won't recognize the file type. --- Echo Effects The "Echo" option in Sound Lab is quite potent. Use the enclosed .EKO files as a guide for setting options. A very interesting effect can be obtained by reversing the sample, adding an echo effect, and reversing the sample again. Thus the sample plays in the proper direction, but the echoes precede the sound. You can make other interesting effects by using Echo Fade Rates of 1 or nearly 1. You should only try this with relatively quiet samples, though; loud samples will be distorted if you also add loud echoes to them. If you want to hear the echoes at the end of a sample, you should use "Gap" with your left block marker at the end of your sample (see "Gap"). This will add blank space at the end of your file. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 27 --- Background Effects The "Overlay" option in Sound Lab is more powerful than it may first look. You can use it some recorded background sounds; then overlay them at low volume (.2 or .3) onto a louder sample. Use the repeat option to add the same sound over and over. This gives "atmosphere" to a sample, especially if you use echo effects as well. You can overlay sounds even if they're too large to fit into RAM; just use "Ovly File". You can also get an interesting effect by overlaying the same sound onto silence several times in slightly different locations. --- Preferences Sound Lab has no intentions of restricting you to its way of doing things. You can configure many of the options to your own preferences. Clicking on "Prefs" (eighth column) will bring up the _Preferences_ dialog. In this are nine options for you to set. First is "Output", which lets you choose how you want the digitized sound played. "Sound Chip", the default, refers to the ST's sound chip; it's present in all ST's, and produces moderate quality sound. "STe DMA" is only useful on STe's and TT's; it selects the STe's digitized sound chip, which creates exceptional quality sound. "Cartridge" plays the sound through the ST Replay cartridge's output. When you click on the "STe DMA" button, a small dialog will appear with three sliders. These sliders control the overall volume (from -80 to 0), the left and right volumes (from -40 to 0), and the bass and treble (-12 to +12). You can click on "Play" inside the dialog to test the adjustments. Click on "Okay" to confirm the settings, or "Cancel" to restore them to their previous values. Clicking on "Cancel" here does _not_ abort the STe DMA output option--just the volume/bass/treble settings. (If you don't have an STe, selecting the "STe DMA" button will just use the ST output.) The second option is "Window Title". This lets you choose what you want in the title bar of the sample window. The default is "Pathname", which shows you the full path of the current file, the speed, magnification, and block size. "Info" shows only the filename of the current sample, leaving enough room to show the file size in kilobytes and the offset in bytes. This second option can be extremely useful to programmers. The third option in the _Preferences_ dialog is "Window Display". This chooses how you want to have the sample displayed in the window. You can choose from "Points" (the Sound Lab 1.0 Page 28 fastest-drawing option), "Outline" (the default, also the slowest), and "Solid" (a good compromise). The Preview boxes in the _Overlay_, _Volume_, and _Fade_ dialogs all follow this option, as well as the main window. The fourth option is "Dialog Preview". It specifies whether to use the actual sample ("Sample", the default) or generic waves ("Wave") in the _Volume_ and _Fade_ dialogs. The _Overlay_ dialog always uses waves, since using the actual samples makes for a complete mess in the dialog. The fifth option, "Sizes In", refers to which units are used in the window title bar. The default is "Bytes", but you can also select "Seconds". Note that this means only the window title bar; it has no effect on items inside dialogs. The sixth option is "Menus". It allows you to choose between "Drop-down" (ST-type, the default) or "Pull-down" (Macintosh-type). The seventh option is "Zoombox". With this, you can turn the "zoom" on ("Yes", the default) or off ("No"). This "zoom" appears both before and after all dialogs, if turned on. Eighth is "Existing Files". It allows you to choose what Sound Lab will do when you try to save over an existing file. You can choose "Erase", which erases the old file to make way for the new; "Rename", which renames the old file so its extension is .BAK, then saves the new file; or "Ask" (the default), which asks this question every time the situation occurs. The last option is "Default Speed". Normally this is 9.6KHz, but clicking here will bring up the _Speed_ dialog, allowing you to choose any speed as the default. At the bottom of the _Preferences_ dialog are three buttons: "Save", "Use", and "Cancel". "Save" will save your preferences (and the positions of all dialogs) to the file SOUNDLAB.PRF, in the same directory as you ran Sound Lab from. If you ran Sound Lab from an AUTO folder, the preferences file will be saved to the root directory, not the AUTO folder (don't panic, that's where Sound Lab will look for it when it loads). If you ran Sound Lab from a floppy, make sure your Sound Lab disk is in the drive when you hit "Save". "Use" will keep the changes you've made, but won't save them; this is most useful if you've called up the _Preferences_ dialog only to adjust the "STe DMA" buttons. "Cancel", of course, aborts the changes and restores the previous settings. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 29 -------- Using the _Fileselector_ Sound Lab uses the custom dmj software file selector. It's really quite simple to use. If you have an alternate file selector loaded (like the Universal Item Selector, or the Little Green Selector) you won't be able to use it, since Sound Lab is a TOS program, and alternate file selectors work in GEM programs. At the top of the file selector is a line of text telling you what file you're supposed to be selecting with the file selector. By "grabbing" this bar with the mouse (i.e. move the pointer to it, press, and hold the left button down) you can drag the entire file selector to a new spot on the screen. The file selector will appear at this same spot every time you use it, until you leave the program. Below this line, you will see a line of text containing the pathname. You cannot change this line directly. More on this later. Below the pathname is the major component of the file selector: the filenames. This large white box contains up to 24 filenames at a time. To select a filename, just click on it. Then click on the "Okay" button, which you will find in the lower right hand corner of the file selector. You can also just double-click on the filename and skip clicking on the "Okay" button; it will do the same thing. Below the white filename box you will see the name of the currently selected file. This filename can be edited with the keyboard. You can use the left and right arrow keys, BACKSPACE, and DELETE to edit this filename. You will not be able to enter an illegal filename. You can press ESC to erase the filename completely; CTRL and the left or right arrow key will move the cursor to the beginning and end of the filename, respectively. In the lower right hand corner of the file selector you will find two buttons, "Okay" and "Cancel". Selecting "Okay" confirms the choice listed in the "Filename" area in the lower left hand corner of the file selector. Selecting "Cancel" aborts this selection process. Pressing RETURN on the keyboard is the same as selecting "Okay"; pressing UNDO is the same as selecting "Cancel". Directly to the right of the white filename box is a vertical slider. This is only useful when there are more than 24 files in the current folder. You can use the up and down arrow buttons to scroll the names; you can click above or below the slider itself to move the slider in that direction quickly; or you can drag the slider to a new position directly. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 30 You may have noticed some of the names in the white filename box have a small > symbol to their left. These aren't files; they are folders. You can click on a folder's name (just once) to change the current folder and see what's inside it. The pathname line directly above the white filename box will reflect the change--the new folder name will be added on the end. To exit back out of the folder, you can either select the "<-" button in the upper right hand corner of the file selector, or click on the part of the pathname that you want to go to. For example, if your current folder is "D:\SAMPLES\AVR\" and you wanted to go back to the SAMPLES folder, you could either select the "<-" button, or click on the word "SAMPLES" in the pathname line. You can jump back several folders at a time with just one click. In the example above, you could click on "D:\" and go to the main directory of the disk, whereas it would take two clicks of the "<-" button to do the same. There are three other buttons in the upper right hand corner of the file selector. One has a drive letter on it; another has a disk icon on it; the third has "*.*" on it. The drive letter button allows you to quickly change the current drive. Just click and hold the mouse button down on the drive letter. Move the mouse pointer to the drive you want to use, and release the mouse button. You will not be able to select a drive that does not exist--this also means drive B, so if you have a single floppy drive, forget about drive B. The disk icon button serves no other purpose but to tell the file selector that you have inserted another disk, and you would like to reread the disk's directory. The "*.*" icon, however, will require some explanation. This button calls up another dialog that allows you to select the "search mask". The search mask is how you tell the file selector which files you want to see in the white filename box. You shouldn't normally need to use this. Before explaining about the search mask dialog, a little explanation about search masks themselves is necessary. Search masks are just filenames with wildcards in them. There are two wildcard characters that are used: the asterisk (*) and the question mark (?). The question mark represents any letter--but only one letter. The asterisk represents any number of letters. Here's some examples to make things clearer: the wildcard SND?.AVR would match SND1.AVR, SND2.AVR, and SNDZ.AVR, but not SOUN.AVR, SND.AVR, or SND23.AVR. The wildcard SND*.AVR would match SND1.AVR, SND2.AVR, SNDZ.AVR, SND.AVR, SND23.AVR, and SNDTHING.AVR, but not SOUND.AVR or SOUND19.AVR. See? That's why the wildcard "*.*" is used to mean all files--because it matches all filenames. Any number of characters, of any type, match the first *. Then there's the period, which separates the name from the extension. The last * matches any extension, no matter how long it is. The catch here is that GEMDOS takes a Sound Lab 1.0 Page 31 shortcut when it comes to "*.*". That wildcard shouldn't match the filename "TEST", because it doesn't have a period in it. But because GEM doesn't actually record the period on the disk, it assumes it is there. So when GEMDOS checks for files, "TEST" comes out to be "TEST.", and so fits the wildcard. You've undoubtedly used wildcards before. In the GEM File Selector, the wildcard appears at the end of the pathname. Many programs make use of wildcards to mask out files you don't need to worry about. For example, when selecting a picture from SPC-3375 (a Spectrum picture viewer), it uses a search mask of *.SP?. This allows all files to appear in the GEM File Selector, as long as the first two letters of the extension are "SP". So anything with an extension of "SPC" and "SPU" will show up. Unfortunately, anything with an extension of "SPX" or "SPQ" will also show up. It would be nice if there was an easy way to allow only the extensions "SPC" and "SPU". The dmj software file selector allows you to do just that. It allows you to take several wildcards and chain them together to make one mask; a file only needs to fill one of the wildcards to appear in the white filename box. You separate wildcards with the vertical bar character, |. So to display just Spectrum pictures, you'd use the mask "*.SPC|*.SPU", instead of the less precise "*.SP?". Of course, you don't use pictures in Sound Lab; that's why the default mask is "*.AVR|*.SPL|*.SAM"--it shows only .AVR, .SPL, and .SAM type files. Now that the enhanced wildcards have been explained, I can explain how to use the "*.*" dialog. You will see ten lines in the dialog, each with a different search mask. To select one of these search masks, just select its button, which can be found at the left side of the dialog. You can select "Ok" to confirm your choice, or double-click on your choice to avoid the "Ok" button. You can press F1-F10 in place of click on the selection buttons, and you can press RETURN in place of clicking on the "Ok" button. If you want to change one of the search masks, click on the mask you want to change. Then use the arrow keys, BACKSPACE, and DELETE to edit the search mask on that line. Remember that simply editing a mask does not select it; you must choose its button on the left hand side. Also note that you cannot edit the top two lines. These are reserved. The top line has the mask provided when the fileselector was called up; the second line has the catch-all "*.*". This fileselector is very similar to the one used in DMJ GIF. The difference is that you can now press F1-F10 in the fileselector itself, without having to call up the search mask dialog; you can also use ALT-A through ALT-P to switch or reread drives. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 32 -------- If Something Goes Wrong Inevitably you will, at one point, find that things are not going well for you. Here's a list of common things that might go wrong, and brief explanations of how to fix them. --- Sound Lab won't load. Hopefully it told you what was wrong; if so, fix it. Otherwise, it's possible that you have a damaged file (not likely) or that Sound Lab doesn't like one of your accessories or AUTO programs. If this is the case, fiddle around with them and see if you can get Sound Lab to load; if you figure out which one(s) Sound Lab doesn't like, please tell me, so I can pass it on to other users. --- Mouse won't move during play/record functions. That's normal. When you move the mouse, it grabs time from the processor, and that screws up the timing for those sound routines. So the mouse is disabled whenever timing is critical. --- No sound during playback. Turn up your monitor's volume. Or (if you're using the STe sound) turn up whatever the STe's speaker ports are connected to. The same goes for the Cartridge output. It's also possible that you don't have a sound loaded. If you see a flat line in the sample window, then no sound is loaded! --- No sound during record/listen. Turn up the volume on your sound source. Use the Monitor function to check the volume, and adjust it correctly. Also make sure that your cartridge is connected, and you have a sound source connected. Neither the ST Replay nor Daatasound cartridge amplify the sound source, so most microphones cannot be connected directly to the cartridge. Use a cassette recorder or portable CD player for best results. --- Sample is very noisy, hard to hear. You may have a signed sample. Try using "High Bit" to fix it. (See Tips.) --- Record/Listen are noisy. Make sure you're using either ST Replay or Daatasound cartridges. Other cartridges are not proven to work; I make no claims for them. Also, use only high quality connections between your sound source and cartridge; one bad connector can ruin an otherwise good setup. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 33 --- Samples don't load at the correct speed. Use .AVR format when saving files. This records not only the sample, but also the speed of the sample and any looping that may go with it. --- Loading or Saving produces errors. It's possible that a disk could be damaged. If Sound Lab has a problem with a disk, it will tell you what it is. If the disk is damaged, you will need to save to another disk. If you don't have another disk formatted, you can use Sound Lab's /Format/ option to format a disk for you. You may also need to do this if your disk gets full. --- GFA BASIC Errors You're up late one night, fiddling with your finest sounds, and you get an alert saying, "GFA BASIC Error". Ugh. Hopefully this won't happen to you. Sound Lab has been extensively tested with a wide variety of AUTO programs on a large selection of STs. On the off chance that something does go wrong, I'd like to know about it. Please tell me what happened, what you were doing just before it happened, and which accessories and AUTO programs you're using. Seriously--the more information I have, the better the chance that I can figure out what went wrong. It wouldn't hurt to tell me what kind of computer you're using, either. Sound Lab 1.0 Page 34 -------- Quick Reference & Keyboard Shortcuts This section lists all of the capabilities of Sound Lab, with a brief description of them and their keyboard equivalents. Throughout these descriptions, "Block" refers to your marked block; "File" or "Sample" refers to the entire sample loaded into memory; and "Buffer" refers to the area of memory set aside by Sound Lab to store chunks Cut or Copied from the sample. All keyboard equivalents are in lower case, except where "Shift" is noted. "Play" Plays the current block at the current speed. Space bar also activates this option. If the "Play" button appears inside a dialog, the space bar activates it there too. "Monitor" Displays the input from the sound cartridge over the sample window, allowing the volume of the sound source to be adjusted. The display should show a wide range of motion, but should not appear clipped at the top or bottom. ("M") "Record" Allows the recording of sound, but only over the current block. If the entire file is marked as the block, then you can record into the entire file area (as shown by "Memory size"). You can choose to "Wait" for the sound or "Start" immediately. (Return) Sound Lab works with the Pandaal DaataSound cartridge, and the ST Replay (non-stereo) cartridge. "Speed" Allows the adjustment of the current speed. Brings up a dialog, with 11 preset speeds, the ability to double or halve the speed, go up or down a tone (as in music), adjust the speed with a slider, or enter it directly. Valid speeds range from 4.915KHz to 30.72KHz. (The ST's sound chip can't go faster than that.) You can "Play" the speed right in the dialog; "Okay" confirms the change, "Cancel" aborts it. Keyboard equivalents are F1-F10, F20, "D", "H", up arrow, down arrow, space, Return, and Undo. The function keys can also be used at the main screen. ("P") The "Convert" button is used to convert the sample from the current speed to the newly selected speed. "Zoom In" These keys adjust the zoom level. Max zoom "Zoom Out" shows the entire file; 1x means each pixel on the screen is one byte in the file. Max, 16x, 8x, 4x, 2x, and 1x are the available zoom levels. "Z" and "A" are the equivalents. "Hide Blk" This will temporarily hide the selected block, selecting the entire file. The button (which can be activated by "H") will "stick"; click Sound Lab 1.0 Page 35 on it again to reveal your block. "Cut" Cuts the block from the file, pulling the remaining sample down. This block is then stored in a buffer (the "Memory size" will change to reflect the change in available space). ("X") "Copy" Like Cut, except it won't remove the block from the file. ("C") "Clear" When you hit this button, an alert will appear, asking what you want to clear. You can clear your "Block", which will replace your marked block with silence; you can clear your "Buffer", giving you more memory for recording and such; or you can clear "Everything", which erases _all_ of your sample and buffer. If you elect to clear your block, and your block is the whole file, then Sound Lab will reset to the way it was when it was loaded (all memory, except the buffer, available for recording). Note that if you "Record" while your whole file is marked as a block, you can record as much as you have RAM for, so this is not really necessary. (Home) "Insert" Inserts the block stored in the buffer (with Cut & Copy) into the sample before the left block marker. If there isn't enough room for the Insert, you'll be presented with four options: Lose Sample, Lose Buffer, Insert to Fit, and Cancel. Lose Sample will cause the end of the sample to be lost; Lose Buffer will preserve all of the sample, but trashes the block in the process; and Insert to Fit will insert as much of the buffer as will fit. ("I") "Overlay" Brings up the Overlay dialog. In this three waves are displayed; light blue is the block, dark blue is the buffer, and black is the result of merging the two together. The slider on the left adjusts the block volume, and the slider on the right adjusts the buffer volume. The "Length" buttons allow you to choose which sample (block or buffer) you want as the length to Overlay with; the "Repeat" buttons allow you to choose whether or not to repeat the buffer if the Overlay is longer than the buffer. Click on "Okay" to overlay the samples, or "Cancel" to abort. ("O") "Volume" Allows the volume of the block to be changed. In the dialog, you can use the slider to set the volume change, or enter it directly. Valid values are from 0.25 (volume x 1/4) to 4 (volume x 4). The diagram shows the original sample (blue) and the proposed change (black). You can use the "Play" button to test the Sound Lab 1.0 Page 36 change, hearing any distortion that will be introduced because of the change. Clicking on "Cancel" after the "Play" _will_ abort the change; you _must_ click on "Okay" for the change to take effect. ("V") "Remove" This is like Cut, except it doesn't copy the block to the buffer first. Since there is no undo of this, you will be asked if you are sure. (Delete) "Loop" Allows the setting or clearing of a loop. Brings up an alert with four buttons, "Set Loop", "Reset Block", "Loop On/Off", and "Cancel". "Set Loop" sets looping to the current marked block. "Reset Block" moves the block markes to the current loop settings. "Loop On/Off" turns looping on or off (without changing the loop or block markers), and "Cancel" does nothing. While looping is on, "Play" will play the entire sound with looping, regardless of any marked block; "Set Loop" and "Reset Block" both turn looping on. ("U") "Fade" Allows the fading of the block. Don't let the dialog scare you, it's only slightly more complicated than the Volume dialog. This time you have two sliders, one for the start volume, and one for the end volume. You can click on the "Fade In" or "Fade Out" buttons to set the sliders to the appropriate default positions; "Play" will pre-test the fade before making it final, and "Shape" will bring up a small dialog, allowing you to choose the shape of the fade. In this dialog (or the main _Fade_ dialog) you can use F1-F4 to change shapes. ("F") "Echo" This also looks worse than it is; it allows you to add echo effects to your block. The top slider is the volume of each echo compared to its predecessor (0.5 is a good number). The second slider is how far apart--in seconds--the echoes should be. (The current speed is crucial to the accurate figuring of this.) And the number of echoes is just that: how many echoes should be added to the block. Click on "Okay" to confirm, "Cancel" to abort. Usually echo spacings of .125 and .062 are good, and three or four echoes are plenty. Use "Load" and "Save" to load and save echo settings. ("E") "Reverse" Flips the block so it plays backwards. ("R") "High Bit" Used to toggle between signed samples (.SAM) and unsigned samples (.SPL). .AVR files may be of either type; Sound Lab uses unsigned samples. If the sample looks and sounds very Sound Lab 1.0 Page 37 noisy, try toggling the high bit. When signed samples (.SAM or .AVR) are loaded, Sound Lab automatically toggles the high bit for you, so you shouldn't need this button very often. ("B") "Load" If you have your entire file marked as your current block (as with the "Hide Blk" function), the entire file area is cleared and a new file is loaded in (as specified by the fileselector that pops up). If you don't have your entire file marked, the file you specify will be loaded over the sample you currently have in memory, up to the length of the block you mark. If you aren't sure which way the Load is going to work, look at the fileselector's title bar. If there isn't enough room for the load (because either your block or file area is too small) Sound Lab will bring up the "Load Partial" dialog; this allows you to choose exactly which part of the sample to load. Use the slider in the dialog or enter the amount of bytes to skip, then select "Okay". "Cancel" will, of course, abort the load. "Load" uses the standard dmj software fileselector, but now you can press ALT-A through ALT-P to switch drives (and re-read that drive), and F1-F10 can now be pressed for the search masks without calling up the search mask dialog. ("L") "Save" This saves the currently marked block. (You'll note the fileselector title reflects whether or not the block is the entire file.) The extensions .SPL (raw data, unsigned), .SAM (raw data, signed), and .AVR (raw data and header info) are all supported. ("S") "Help" This button brings up the help system. Since the Help is self-explanatory, I won't go into details here. Help can also be activated by pressing the Help key; this key can be pressed _anywhere_ to get help with whatever you're doing. "Prefs" This brings up the Preferences dialog. ("?") In this, you will find you can set several items. The first, "Output", refers to how you want the digitized sound to be played; choose "Sound Chip" (for regular ST's), "STe DMA" (for STe's), or "Cartridge" (if you have an ST Replay cartridge with output). Clicking on "STe DMA" will also bring up the _STe_ dialog, allowing you to adjust the volume, bass, and treble. Next is the "Window Title", which sets what is to be displayed in the sample window title bar; choose "Pathname" (which Sound Lab 1.0 Page 38 displays the full pathname of the file, at the expense of some other information) or "Info" (which displays the filename only, leaving room for the other info). The third item refers to how to draw the display; choose "Points", "Outline", or "Solid". Next is "Dialog Preview", which sets the display inside the _Fade_ and _Volume_ dialogs; "Sample" uses the actual sample(s) involved, whereas "Wave" uses generic waves. The next option refers to what units to display sample sizes in; choose seconds or bytes. The next item, Menus, refers to how you access the menus; "Drop-down" is like the typical GEM menus, but "Pull-down" requires you to press and hold the mouse button to access the menus (like Macintosh menus). Next is "Zoombox", which allows you to turn on ("Yes") or off ("No") the zooming boxes on dialogs. Last is the "Existing Files" preference, which sets what Sound Lab will do if you try to save over an existing file; choose "Erase" (which clobbers the old file), "Rename" (which renames the old file to .BAK, killing any previous .BAK of that name), or "Ask" (which asks which of the two you want to do every time the situation comes up). The only other item here is "Default Speed", which sets the default speed when Sound Lab first loads. When you're done setting your preferences, click on "Save" (which saves the settings to SOUNDLAB.PRF), "Use" (which keeps the settings but doesn't save them), or "Cancel" (which restores the settings to their previous values). "Quit" Exits the program. You will be asked if you are sure. In addition to these twenty-four buttons, there are ten more functions that can be accessed by clicking on one of the twenty-four buttons with the _right_ mouse button. While the right mouse button is down, you will see the buttons change their labels to reflect the change in functions. Each is placed "under" the most logical button for it. "Play Buf" Plays the sample currently stored in the buffer (from Cut or Copy) at the current speed. (Shift space) "Listen" Plays the input on the digitizer cartridge through the monitor speaker, at the current sampling rate. This allows you to hear the quality of the digitized sound before actually recording anything. (Shift "M") "Min Zoom" Zooms in to 1x magnification. (Shift "Z") Sound Lab 1.0 Page 39 "Max Zoom" Zooms out to Max magnification. (Shift "A") "Gap" Inserts a chunk of silence before the left block marker; this chunk is just as long as the marked block is. If there isn't enough memory for this, the Insert dialog will appear, asking what you want to do about it. ("G", Shift "G") "Ins File" Like Insert, but inserts a file instead of the buffer. The fileselector will appear, allowing you to select the file to be used. (Shift "I") "Ovly File" Like Overlay, but overlays a file instead of the buffer. (Shift "O") "Trim" Like "Remove", except that it removes everything from the file that _isn't_ between the block markers. This is useful if you have just recorded a sample, and there are "pops" at the start and end. Just mark the block so that you can't hear any "pops", and select Trim. This also requires confirmation. ("T") "Load Buf" Allows you to load a file directly into the buffer. If there isn't enough room for the file, Sound Lab will ask you if you want to overwrite the end of your sample to try to fit in the buffer. Answer "Yes" or "No". If you answer "No", Sound Lab will present you with the "Load Partial" dialog, allowing you to choose which portion of the file to load. (Shift "L") "Save Buf" Allows you to save the contents of the buffer to disk directly. Other than that, it works just like Save. (Shift "S") There are also some other keyboard shortcuts that you should be aware of. From the main screen, you can press F1 through F10 and F20 to set the speed. Use ^N, ^D, ^C, ^R, and ^F to select the /Rename File/, /Delete File/, /Create Folder/, /Remove Folder/, and /Format Disk/ options; Alt-A through Alt-P check the free space on that drive. ^I, ^S, and ^T can be used to select the /Sound Lab/, /Shareware/, and /Thanks/ options from the /Desk/Info/ submenu. In all alerts and dialogs, Return is "Okay", "Yes", or "Retry", and Undo is "Cancel" or "No". Sound Lab 1.0 Page 40 -------- Index AUTO Folder 7, 28 Folder Background 26 AUTO 7, 28 Backup Files 11, 26, 28 Create 22, 39 Block 12 Remove 23, 39 Clear 18, 35 Format Disk 23, 39 Convert 20, 34 Free Space 23, 39 Copy 14, 35 Gap 18, 39 Cut 13, 35 Help 7, 37 Echo 20, 36 Hide Block 12, 34 Fade 19, 36 High Bit 24, 32, 36 Gap 18, 39 Info 22 Hide 12, 34 Insert 14, 35 Load 25, 37 File 17, 39 Loop 15, 36 Listen 10, 38 Mark 12 Load 8, 33, 37 Play 12, 34 Block 25 Record 12, 34 Buffer 17, 39 Remove 15, 36 Echo 20, 36 Reverse 20, 36 Partial 25 Save 26, 37 Sound Lab 6, 32 Trim 15, 39 Looping 9, 15, 36 Volume 18, 35 Menus 22, 28, 39 Buffer 13, 34 Monitor 10, 34 Insert 14, 35 Moving Dialogs 24 Load 17, 39 Overlay 16, 35 Overlay 16, 35 Background 26 Play 14, 38 File 17, 39 Save 17, 39 Play 9, 34 Cartridge 6, 32 Block 12 Installing 6 Buffer 14,17,38 Playing Through 27, 37 in Fade 19, 36 Clear 18, 35 in Speed 9, 34 Copy 14, 35 in STe 27 Create Folder 22, 39 in Volume 19, 35 Cut 13, 35 Preferences 27, 37 Delete File(s) 22, 39 Preview Echo 20, 36 Fade 19, 36 Techniques 26 Overlay 16, 35 Effects 18 Sample 27, 38 Fade 19, 36 Volume 18, 35 File(s) Wave 27, 38 Backups 11, 26, 28 Quit 7, 23, 38 Delete 22, 39 Record 10, 34 Formats 8, 9, 25, 33 Block 12 Insert 17, 39 Speed 24 List of 6 Remove 15, 36 Load 8, 33 Folder 23 Overlay 17, 39 Rename File 22, 39 Rename 22, 39 Reverse 20, 36 Save 10, 33 Sampling Rates 4 Fileselector 29 Choosing 24 Sound Lab 1.0 Page 41 Save 10, 33, 37 Block 26 Buffer 17, 39 Echo 20, 36 Partial 26 Speed 8, 34 Convert 20 Tips 24 Title Screen 7 Bypassing 24 Trim 15, 39 Volume 18, 35 Adjusting 10, 32 Window 7 Display 8, 27, 38 Title 7, 8, 27, 38 Zoom 12, 34, 38, 39