Author: Hugh Allan 11 Rugby Rd Lutterworth LE17 4BW Leicestershire, England Platforms: NeXT Prerequisites: NS3.0 Price: US$5.00, or £3.50, shareware Demo: To acquire: http://www.peanuts.org/peanuts/NEXTSTEP/audio/programs/SoundPlayerPlus.1.0.N.b.tar.gz (80k) Information: Entry updated: 7 February 1999 Description: A wav/snd/svx(Amiga) player, with play list and timing functions
SoundPlayer+ V1.00 Readme
This is ObjectWare's first ShareWare product. After much thought I have decided not to cripple the product and release it as straight ShareWare. If you like SoundPlayer+ why not try Cookie, a program of similar quality. In the SoundPlayer archive you should find.
The manual is written using WriteNow so forgive some of the typographical errors, it's the best WriteNow can do, *GRIN*. Also WriteNow does something quite horrible to the illustrations when you save the PostScript out, so the manual is in .wn format rather than PostScript. Very un-3.0.
Introduction
SoundPlayer+ is a direct replacement for the demo app SoundPlayer.
In addition to SoundPlayers' functionality I have added:
* SoundPlayer+ can play a list of sounds in sequence, or at random,
and looped.
* It handles Amiga IFF 8SVX files(.svx), and 8 Bit mono
MicroSoft WAVE(.iff) files.
* It displays waveform on screen, and shows where it it is in
playing the sample.
* Shows length of sample in seconds. Switchable between seconds
played so far and seconds to go.
* Drag and drop sound files into SoundPlayer+.
* Darned attractive info panel.
Recording and PlayBack
The functions for playback and recording of sound are highlighted as so:
Play - Play plays the current sound stored.
Stop - Stops the current playing or recording of a sound.
Pause - Pauses the current recording or playback of sound
Record -
Opening and Saving Files
SoundPlayer+ supports three types of files, the types are:
* NeXT Sound Files - These are files created by standard NeXT applications.
These end with .snd. You may open and save out these files.
* Amiga IFF SVX Files - These files are standard on the Commodore
Amiga Computer. These end with .svx. You may open these files only.
* Microsoft Wave Files - These files are standard on Windows 3.0 with
MultiMedia extensions and Windows 3.1. 8 Bit samples are supported only.
You may open these files only.
The control panel has these areas describing the sound file:
Dropping - SoundPlayer can play this file.
Opening - The document menu has an item to open files
Files - This option will open a file browser from which you can choose files.
Sound File Information -
Information Line
This line tells you the sound file type, the sample format, and the
sampling rate.
Timer
Waveform display
This section displays the waveform. When the sample is playing it will
display where the player is in playing the sample.
Sound File List
This area contains the list of files to play. To clear the
list select New from the Document Menu, this will also clear
the current sound in memory. To re-order files in the list
hold down the Control key and
drag the item to the place in the list you want to item to appear. To
play an item in the list click on it while the player is stopped and click
on play.
Cut Track
Record samples sound from the built in CODEC Microphone at 8012.83 Hz.
Once the record button is clicked it will highlight, and the timer will
display the amount of sound sampled in seconds.
Drag and Dropping
The easiest way to play a sound on SoundPlayer+ is to drop it's icon
onto the SoundPlayer+ Window or it's application Icon.
When dropped the file will be play listed and played.
Double Clicking
If SoundPlayer+ is selected as your default tool for .snd,.wav and .svx,
sounds can be played by double clicking on their icons in
WorkSpace File Manager, or NeXT Mail.
Saving
To save a file select the Save option on the document menu. The file
will be saved out using the current file name. To save the file with a
different name, use Save_As instead.
SoundPlayer+ has a two function timer. When in "To Start" mode,
the timer displays the amount of time from the beginning of the
sample. Click on the timer switch button, will toggle it to "The End"
mode. When recording samples the timer is always in "To Start" mode.
Background Information
On the NeXT the easiest way to sample sounds is using the built in
sampling CODEC microphone. This samples sound in MULAW format, which
is a way of representing 12 bits of sound information in only 8 bits.
The built in microphone samples at 8012.83 samples per second.
This is just fine for sampling speech at telephone quality, and the
compactness of sound is well suited to transmitting voice via
NeXTMail. If you wish better quality sampling there are third party
products which plug into the NeXT's DSP(Digital Signal Processor) input.
The NeXT currently supports three playback speeds: 8012.83 samples per second, 22050 samps/sec, and 44100 samps/sec.
When SoundPlayer+ plays back Amiga 8SVXs and Microsoft Waves,
it has to resample sound to one of these rates. Even though the
original samples are 8 Bit, when you save them out they come out as
16 bit sound files as many samples come out too loud for the NeXT to
play and so have to be quietened down. So in order not to lose
resolution they have to be converted to 16 Bit.
License
If you intend to use this product for longer than 45 days you have to
register it, or remove it from any media which you own.
Licensing this product costs $5.00 in US Funds, or £3.50, whatever is
most convenient. Make cheques payable to Hugh Allan, and send them to the following address:
Hugh Allan
11 Rugby Rd
Lutterworth LE17 4BW
Leicestershire, England
In return you will receive a disk with the following.
* The latest version of SoundPlayer+
* The SoundPlayer+ Manual
* Demo sounds, in 8SVX, WAV and NeXT format
* Online support through CIX(Compulink Information Exchange), or Compuserve.
SoundPlayer+ can tell whether it has been launched from Preferences and will hide it's main window until needed.
Eric M. Mrozek (mrozek@umich.edu), EECS-Systems, University of Michigan