Amiga Format CD 46/Amiga Format CD46 (1999-10-20)(Future Publishing)(GB)[!][issue 1999-12].iso/-in_the_mag-/synth_studies/multisample/multisample.doc

Text File | 1999-09-15 | 19KB | 461 lines

                               MultiSample V1.00
                          Copyright ©1994 Graham Dean.
                Amiga Raw/Amiga 8SVX/ST Raw/PC Wav Sample Converter.


INTRODUCTION
~~~~~~~~~~~~

    There were generally two reasons why I decided to write this program,
the first was that I have some friends with PC's and one with an ST (never
mind, he's got over it now) and I thought, wouldn't it be nice if I could
use their samples and they could use mine? I also thought it would be a nice
idea to be able to easily convert all of my raw samples into the standard
IFF 8SVX format. As I had no program to do these jobs at the time, I decided
to write one.

    So MultiSample was born. I've tried to make it as simple and easy to use
as possible, the program uses standard slider, text and cycle gadgets and is
designed to be easy to use, I hope :-). For more information on the use of
MultiSample see the Using MultiSample section.

    If you have any suggestions or complaints about MultiSample, write to
me. See About the author.


COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
program provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.

    No guarantee of any kind is given that the programs described in this
document are 100% reliable. You are using this material at your own risk.
The author cannot be made responsible for any damage which is caused by
using this program.

   This package is freely distributable, but the copyrights still apply.
This means that you can copy it freely as long as you don't ask for a more
than nominal copying fee.

  Permission is granted to include this package in Public-Domain
collections, especially in the excellent Fred Fish Amiga Disk Library
(including CD ROM versions of it). The package may be uploaded to Bulletin
Board Systems or FTP servers.


REQUIREMENTS
~~~~~~~~~~~~

    To use MultiSample you will need :

    · AmigaDOS 2.04 or higher (works fine with 3.0)

    · About 80K free memory

    · Asl.library installed

Hmmmmmm, that seems to be about it!

MultiSample has been tested on the following systems:

Amiga 4000(030), AmigaDOS 3.0, 2Mb Chip RAM, 4Mb Fast RAM, 120Mb H.D.
Amiga 1200, AmigaDOS 3.0, 2Mb Chip RAM, 4Mb Fast RAM (Power PC1204), 68882
FPU,
85Mb H.D.
Amiga 600, AmigaDOS 2.04, 1Mb Chip Ram.


FEATURES
~~~~~~~~

MultiSample has the following features:

    · Convert between Amiga Raw, Amiga 8SVX (IFF standard), Atari ST Raw and
PC WAV (wave).

    · Reads and writes the correct file frequency for 8SVX and Wav formats.

    · Convert multiple files in one go, using the multiselect file
requester.

    · Converts samples in chunks, so it is possible to convert samples of
any size regardless of free memory.

    · Read files from one directory and write to another.

    · Renames files by changing the filename extension to suit the format.

    · Option to delete the source files once converted.

    · Friendly requesters to confirm all actions.

    · Font sensitive layout.

    · Standard Workbench 2.0+ interface.

    · Option to use any public screen or open it's own custom screen.

    · Possible to set the user's preferences via the tooltypes system. See
ToolTypes.
    · Small executable size (less than 30K).


USING MULTISAMPLE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

STARTING MULTISAMPLE
--------------------

    MultiSample can be started either from the cli or from Workbench. To
start MultiSample from the cli type MultiSample. Any arguments given from
the cli will be ignored, as will the tooltypes.
    To start MultiSample from Workbench just double click on the icon and
you should be confronted with the interface (GUI). When starting from
Workbench, MultiSample reads the ToolTypes from the icon to change the
initial settings of the gadgets.
    The next section describes the function of each of the gadgets and how
to use the GUI.


THE GADGETS AND THE GUI
-----------------------

Source type cycle gadget

    This cycle gadget alters the type of file to convert. It has 4
positions, Amiga Raw, Amiga 8SVX, ST Raw and PC Wav. By clicking on the
gadget, it will advance onto the next setting, holding down shift and
clicking will go to the previous setting.
    When Amiga Raw or ST Raw is selected, no checking is done make sure the
file is of the right type. This is because the files are just raw data and
there is no way of telling the file type. When Amiga 8SVX and PC Wav are
selected, MultiSample will scan the file to check it is of the right type.
If the file is not the same as specified, a requester will appear to notify
the user. The requester gives the option to skip to the next file (if the
user selected multiple files) or abort the operation.

Source file requester icon

    Clicking on this icon will bring up standard ASL file requester. From
the file requester, you can select the files you wish to convert, holding
down shift and clicking allows you to select more than one file to convert
at a time. Once you have selected the file(s), click on OK and the requester
will close. The text gadget below will change to show the directory in which
you selected the files from.
    If no files were selected or Cancel was clicked on, the text gadget does
not change to show the directory.

Source directory text gadget

    This gadget shows the directory from which the sourcefiles are selected.
It is possible to edit this directory by typing into this gadget but I can
see no reason why you would want to do this, the text is editable only to be
consistent with the interface.

Destination type cycle gadget

     This gadget operates in the same way as the source type cycle gadget.
Changing this gadget will also affect the Filename extension cycle gadget to
the corresponding setting.

Destination drawer icon

     Clicking on this icon allows the user to select the drawer in which the
converted samples should be written to, via a standard ASL requester. This
works in a similar way to the source file requester except the only drawers
are displayed and can be
selected.
    Once a drawer is selected, the text in the destination gadget below is
altered to the selected path name. If Cancel is clicked on, then the text
remains unchanged.

Destination drawer text gadget

    This gadget displays the current drawer in which the samples will be
placed, once converted. By clicking on the gadget, the text can be altered
and the path name changed. If the path name typed in doesn't exist, then
there will be an error when trying to convert the samples.

Filename extension cycle gadget

    This cycle gadget allows the user to alter the filename extension that
is added to the converted sample file. This gadget has four preset
extensions .RAW, .IFF, .SPL, .WAV, corresponding to the four file types. For
example, if you were converting from PC Wav format to Amiga 8SVX, an example
source filename might be LIONROAR.WAV. If the cycle gadget is showing .IFF
for the filename extension, then the .WAV is removed from the filename and a
.IFF is placed on the end. So the filename of the converted sample would now
read LIONROAR.IFF.
    The two other positions of the gadget are Custom and Keep Same.
When the custom position is selected, the text gadget below becomes active
and allows the user to type in their own custom filename extension. Examples
might be, .SAM, .sample, .sound, .hamster etc. When using a custom filename
extension, remember to always precede them with a ".".
    The last setting is called Keep Same and when this is selected, no
change is made to the filename.

Filename extension text gadget

    This gadget, as described above, allows the user to use a custom
filename extension by typing in their own text. It is only active when the
cycle gadget above has Custom selected.

Delete Source gadget

    This checkbox gadget displays a tick, when it is selected and an empty
box when it is not. Clicking on the gadget toggles its state from selected
to unselected.
    When selected, after converting each sample MultiSample will attempt to
delete the original file. If for whatever reason it can't delete the file, a
requester will appear to notify the user. WARNING - Once the files have been
deleted, there is no getting them back. Take caution with this feature.

Overwrite Files gadget

    This is another checkbox gadget and operates in the same way as the
delete source gadget. When it is selected, MultiSample will replace any
existing files with the same name without any warning. When it is unselected
and the file already exists, a requester will appear alerting the user and
offering four options. The options are to replace all the files, replace
that one file, skip the file or abort the conversion for all the files. This
is described in more detail in the Converting Samples section.

Frequency slider gadget

    When the destination type is either Amiga 8SVX or PC Wav (where the
frequency is saved with the sample) and the Use File Frequency gadget below
is unselected, this gadget will be active. The slider allows you to adjust
the frequency of the sample from 3Khz to 50Khz in 1Khz steps. This gadget
only applies when the user wants to set the frequency of the sample by hand,
mostly it is preferable to use the source files frequency. Also see the next
gadget listed below.

Use File Frequency gadget

    If the source and destination type are either Amiga 8SVX or PC Wav then
there is the option to use the source files frequency. What this means is
that, if you are converting an 8SVX with a frequency of 15Khz and you wanted
to save it as a Wav format file then the Wav would be saved with a frequency
of 15Khz too. If the gadget is unselected then the user can change the
frequency by adjusting the slider gadget
above.

Convert button


    Clicking on this gadget will make MultiSample attempt to convert the
samples that have been selected. For more information see the Converting
Samples section.


CONVERTING SAMPLES WITH MULTISAMPLE
-----------------------------------

   To convert a sample or a group of samples to another format, the first
thing that you need to do, is select the source and destination formats. To
do this click on the source cycle gadget till the required format is
selected, then click on the destination cycle gadget to select the format
you want to convert to. Note: if you are converting a group of samples, they
all need to be of the same format.   Next you need to select the file(s)
using the standard ASL file requester. To do this, click on the file
requester icon in the source section (this is the gadget on the far left
hand side). To select multiple files, hold down the shift on the keyboard
and select the files. Once you have selected the file(s) click on OK. The
you will need to select the destination drawer, this tells multisample where
to put the file(s) once it has converted them. Click on the destination
drawer requester and then select the required drawer and click on OK.
Note: with the destination drawer requester, only drawers are displayed and
any files cannot be seen.
   Now you need to decide you want the filename extension of the files
changing. If you want them to stay the same, click on the cycle gadget till
keep same is selected. For more information see the gadgets section.
   From the options section of the window you can select whether it warns
you about overwriting files and whether you want the source files deleted
once converted. You can also force the converted samples to have a
particular frequency (selected from the slider gadget) or use the source
file's frequency (if it is an Amiga 8SVX or PC WAV format). For more detail
on the options and frequency selection see the gadgets section.
    Now that you have selected the source and destination files and their
formats, you are ready to convert the samples, so click on Convert gadget
and go!


TOOLTYPES
~~~~~~~~~

    The tooltypes offer basic method to configure MultiSample to your needs.
The tooltypes can be accessed by clicking on the programs icon and bringing
up the information requester from the Icon menu in workbench.
    Below is a list of all the possible tooltypes and how to use them.
Remember that anything in brackets is ignored.

PUBSCREEN=<public screen name>

    When launching MultiSample it will open on the default public screen,
this is usually workbench. This can be changed with this tooltypel. To force
MultiSample to open on the workbench screen use PUBSCREEN=Workbench.
    It is also possible to force MultiSample to use it's own custom screen
by using, PUBSCREEN=Custom. This will open a new screen with the same
resolution, mode and palette as the workbench screen, but will use only 4
colours.
    Any other name given with this tooltype will force MultiSample to open
on that public screen. If the public screen does not exist, MultiSample will
fall back to the default public screen.

CHUNKSIZE=<size in bytes> Default = 10000

   When MultiSample is converting a sample from one format to another, it
loads the file in chunks. The default chunk size is 10000bytes (10K), which
means any sample will only take up 10K of memory, but a 500K sample would be
loaded in 50 chunks.
    If you are converting from, and/or to a floppy, then each chunk will
take some time to locate on the disk and therefore the fewer chunks needed,
the better. If you are using a floppy based system you may wish to use a
chunk size of about 100K, in which case use CHUNKSIZE=100000.

SOURCETYPE=<file type> Default = Amiga Raw

   This selects the default source file type for the source file type
gadget. Settings can be:
      Amiga Raw
      Amiga 8SVX
      ST Raw
      PC WAV

DESTTYPE=<file type> Default = Amiga 8SVX

   This selects the default destination file type for the destination file
type gadget.
Settings can be:
      Amiga Raw
      Amiga 8SVX
      ST Raw
      PC WAV


SOUCREDIR=<source drawer> Default = Ram:

    This is the default source drawer that will appear when the file
requester is first opened. Examples are : SOURCEDIR=Ram:,
SOURCEDIR=DF0:Samples etc.

DESTDIR=<destination drawer>  Default = Ram:

    This is the default destination drawer that will appear when the file
requester is first opened. Operates same as above.

FILENAMEEXTENSION=<extension> Default = .IFF

    This selects the default position for the filename extension cycle
gadget. Possible settings are :
        .RAW
        .IFF
        .SPL
        .WAV
       Custom
       Keep same

CUSTOMEXTENSION=<extension name> Default = .SAM

    This determines to filename extension to go in the custom filename
extension gadget.Note: the maximum length of filename extension is 15
characters (including the ".").

OVERWRITE=YES or NO Default = NO

    Setting overwrite to YES will make Multisample overwrite all existing
files without warning. The default is NO and Multisample will warn the user
if any files are about to be overwritten, the user will then have the choice
of whether to overwrite the file(s) or abort the operation.

DELETESOURCE=YES or NO Default = NO

    Multisample has the option to delete the source file once it has been
converted. This is useful when converting a batch of files to another format
and not wanting the old files hanging around. WARNING - Once the files have
been deleted, there is no getting them back. Take caution with this feature.

FREQUENCY=<frequency (KHz)> Default = 22 KHz

    This sets the value to be placed into the frequency slider gadget. The
frequency should be in KHz.

USEFILEFREQUENCY=<YES or NO> Default = YES

    When converting from PC WAV or Amiga 8SVX, the frequency is stored
within the file and when Use File Frequency is selected, samples written
will have the same frequency as the source samples. Changing this to NO will
force the checkbox to be unchecked and the frequency of the converted files
will depend upon the value in the frequency slider gadget.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'd just like to thank the following people:

    Andy Dean, my brother, for the StickIt and StickIt2 programs.

    David Cusick, for suggesting the name MultiSample and for various other
suggestions.

    Pete McColden for testing MultiSample on his A600.



FILE FORMATS
~~~~~~~~~~~~

    The following is a list of the file formats currently supported by
MultiSample and their specifications.

    · Amiga Raw, as the name suggests this is a raw format and therefore has
no header or information about the sample. MultiSample supports 8-bit stored
as signed bytes (-128 to 127, with 0 as no amplitude).

    · Amiga 8SVX, this is the Amiga IFF standard for storing 8-bit samples.
MutliSample reads the VHDR header of the file to find it's frequency, all
other information, including other chunks are ignored. MultiSample does not
support Fibonacci-delta compression, but I have never come across any of
these files as yet.

    · ST Raw, this is similar to the Amiga Raw, in the way that no
additional information is stored with the sample. The difference between the
Amiga and ST formats are the way in which the sample data is stored. The ST
uses unsigned bytes (0 to 255, with 128 as no amplitude).

    · PC WAV, this is the format used by windows to store samples. I have no
official information on the file format and I have had to "guess" it's
format. All the WAV samples I have come across work fine, as do the samples
converted with MultiSample. The WAV format has a short header in which the
frequency is defined, and MultiSample reads and writes this frequency. The
WAV body is stored uncompressed as unsigned bytes.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    I ask of no money for MultiSample, but if you have any suggestions,
complaints or comments, please send a postcard of where you live, to the
following address.


   ----------------------------------------------------
  |                         |                  ------  |
  |                         |                  |    |  |
  |                         |                  |    |  |
  |                         |                  ------  |
  |                         |   Graham Dean,           |
  |                         |    14 Fielding Ave,      |
  |                         |     Poynton,             |
  |                         |      Stockport,          |
  |                         |       Cheshire.          |
  |                         |        ENGLAND           |
  |                         |        SK12 1YX          |
  |                         |                          |
   ----------------------------------------------------