If you're new to the audio thing, perhaps I can help you get going in the

right direction.  Basically, you've got two separate things, "soundfiles",

and music.  The soundfiles can be anything from a beep or a buzz sound, to

thunder & rain, to a car crashing in stereo.  They're played with a soundfile

player, "Sound" being one of the best.  Rename it as "Play".


  You'll see the term "IFF" associated with soundfiles, and that's just a

type of format a soundfile has been saved in.  The soundfile players, like

Sound, play either IFF or non-IFF ("RAW") soundfiles, but if you're going to

use soundfiles in a program, like DeluxeVideoIII, they'll have to be IFF.

To convert a RAW soundfile to IFF, you use a sound editor, either commercial

or PD.  The commercial ones do a few more tricks, like saving in stereo, but

for just saving a beep sound, a PD editor will work fine.


  The ultimate soundfile kick is getting a sound digitizing program, like

FutureSound, and making your own.  Along the same lines, you can often trade

your own custom soundfile for a soundfile in a program, like a game.


  Music files fall roughly into two categories, self-playing and MODs.  If

you don't know what type it is, first just try entering the name in the CLI

and see if it plays.  If not, try a MOD player, such as MODMaster or EdPlay.

You'll also want ITracker and MEDPlay for a few of them.  It might even be

a large IFF soundfile, so check that too.


  You'll see some other types of music formats out there, DMCS and Sonix

being among the foremost.  DMCS is, quite frankly, a piece of junk.  The

Sonix music is nice, but the instruments take up a TON of room and end up

in one monstrous directory.  MusicStudio is another music construction set,

but never caught on much, not sure why..it's a fine program.  Anyway, in

this day of self-playing music files and MODs, DMCS, Sonix and MusicStudio

seem as antiquated as Arc and Zoo.  By the way, if you see a "SMUS" running

around, that's a Sonix scriptfile.


  Well, that should get ya started!