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********************************************************************* ** ** ** S U P E R S A M ** ** ** ********************************************************************* ** The Superb Sample Editor v1.01 ** ********************************************************************* ** A Terrosaur Systems Production for the Falcon030 ** ** (C) Copyright 1994 by Daniel Hastings ** ********************************************************************* SuperSam is Shareware! To enable the program's full functionality you must send the registration fee to the author. The files SUPERSAM.PRG, SUPERSAM.RSC and SUPERSAM.DOC may be freely distributed on the following conditions: 1) No alterations are made to the files. 2) The files are kept together. 3) The files may not be coverdisk mounted by either ST Format or Atari ST User magazines. Disclaimer: The Author takes no responsibility whatsoever for any harm, damage or inconvenience caused by the use or misuse of this software package. This software is intended to run on an ATARI FALCON030 computer under TOS. The author takes no responsibility for its success or failure on other machines or under other operating systems. ********************************************************************* Contents: 1. Introduction 1.1 What is SuperSam? 1.2 Features of SuperSam 1.3 Shareware : Version limitations 1.4 Shareware : Registering 2. Quick Start 2.1 General Use 2.2 The File Menu 2.3 The Options Menu 2.4 The Help Menu 2.5 The Sound Buttons 2.6 The Block Buttons 2.7 The Clipboard Buttons 2.8 The Misc. Buttons 2.9 The Convert Buttons 2.10 The Playback buttons 3. The Controls In Depth 3.1 General Use 3.2 The File Menu 3.3 The Options Menu 3.4 The Help Menu 3.5 The Sound Buttons 3.6 The Block Buttons 3.7 The Clipboard Buttons 3.8 The Misc. Buttons 3.9 The Convert Buttons 3.10 The Playback buttons 3.11 Sampling Sounds 4. Editing Techniques 4.1 Sound Effects 4.2 Ripping Samples 4.3 Converting Other Formats 4.4 Correcting bad samples 5. Program Notes 5.1 Why was SuperSam written? 5.2 Compatibility 5.3 Version Revisions 5.4 In Future Versions 5.5 Credits 5.6 Contact addresses 1. Introduction ***************************************************** 1.1 What is SuperSam? ---------------------- SuperSam is a sound sample editor for the Falcon030. A sound sample is a digitally stored sound. Hence with SuperSam you can digitally store sounds on disk, and edit them in a variety of ways including reversing them to play them backwards, cutting and pasting, combining multiple sounds and many more functions. SuperSam eventually aims to be able to do anything you could possibly wish to do to a sound sample. 1.2 Features -------------- SuperSam has many features including: * Handles 6 sample file formats * Handles 8 bit mono, 8 bit stereo and 16 bit stereo samples * Clipboard cut, copy, load, paste, replace, overlay * Ability to import/export from the GEM clipboard * Ability to sign and unsign samples * Ability to fade in/ fade out samples * Ability to boost volume by 25% or to the max possible * Ability to reduce volume by 25% or to zero * Ability to zoom in for finer editing * Flexible deleting * Ability to swap the channels on a stereo sample * Ability to pan the stereo image left to right or vice versa * Ability to edit only the left or right stereo channel * Ability to shift sample playback frequency * Ability to create samples from the MIC input * Supports all Falcon playback frequencies * Customisable * Can be installed as an application to play samples when they are double clicked * Will play or load a sample dropped on its desktop icon * Online HELP system * Batch conversion between file formats * Jukebox mode to play all samples in a folder * Fully GEM legal programming * MultiTOS compatible * Dynamic Memory Allocation 1.2 Shareware : Version Limitations -------------------------------------- SuperSam is shareware. This means that if you intend to keep the software you should pay the registration fee. As an extra incentive to register, this program has some limitations which can only be removed by registering. The limitations are these: - Save, Save As and Block Save are disabled. - Export Clipboard is disabled. - Batch Convert is disabled. When you register you will receive a .KEY file which will remove these limitations and register the program to you. It will also disable the shareware reminder at the beginning of the program. 1.3 Shareware : Registering ----------------------------- To register the program, fill in the form below and send it with the registration fee to the address below. The registration fee is currently 15 pounds sterling, or equivalent in other countries. Please make cheques payable to Mr D. L. Hastings. Please enclose an SAE, or International Reply Coupon, and a disk with your registration fee - this will vastly speed up the registration process. Alternatively, if you have an Internet email account, or a BBS account in TurboNet, AtariNet, FidoNet or NeST then enclose your network address and your KEY will be sent to you through the network. My contact addresses in these networks are below. Note to foreign users: I regret that I cannot accept cheques made out in a foreign currency, nor can I accept credit card numbers. I can accept Eurocheques, travellers cheques or of course cash sent through the post, although this last may be risky. Proof of posting will not be accepted as proof of receipt. I hope to be able to set up agreements with foreign user groups or public domain libraries to handle foreign registrations, so it may be worth your while to contact me first, before sending any money. When you register you will receive the following: - a KEY file to unlock the program limitations - the latest version of the program if it is later than the one you have. - Notification by post or email of new versions. The registration form: (Please complete and send the information with your registration fee) Full Name:_________________________________________________ Address:___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Country:___________________________________________________ Computer System:___________________________________________ RAM/Hard drive:____________________________________________ TOS/MultiTOS version:______________________________________ SuperSam Version:__________________________________________ Comments:__________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Alternatively, simply send the above information in a written letter. Send your form and fee to: Daniel Hastings, Aspenglow, Rectory Road, Alderbury, Salisbury, Wiltshire. SP5 3AD (ENGLAND) Network contact addresses: InterNet: cs93dlh@dcs.ex.ac.uk TurboNet: 100:1011/0.6 FidoNet : 2:440/108.6 AtariNet: 51:502/100.6 NeST : 90:102/140.6 Please use the InterNet address if possible, a fast response is much more likely from this address. I strongly recommend that you contact me via the InterNet address if possible before registering. 2. Quick Start ************************************************** This section is designed for those who already know about sound samples and editing them, and is intended simply to tell the user the function of each control. If you are a complete novice, skip to the in depth instructions in section 3. 2.1 General Use ------------------ You can start SuperSam in 3 ways. 1) Double click on SUPERSAM.PRG. The program will load, display the tools window and it's menu bar. 2) Drop a sample file onto the SUPERSAM.PRG icon. The program will load, play the sample and quit. If you hold the shift key down during loading, the program will load, load the sample into the edit buffer and then go into edit mode. 3) Install SUPERSAM.PRG as an application for a sample file type, then double click on a sample file. As for (2), the program will load and play the sample, or load it into the edit buffer, depending on whether the shift key is pressed during loading. Once the program is running, you have a menu bar and a tools window, the functions of with are detailed below. If a sample is loaded then the sample display window will also be open. The Sample Window ------------------ Closing the sample window clears the sample from memory. Clicking in the window with the left mouse button sets mark 1, and clicking in the window with the right button sets mark 2. The scroll bar at the right hand side of the window, is the sample shifter, it shifts the sample data relative to the green zero position. The up arrow shifts it up, the down arrow shifts it down. The slider determines the size of the shift, if it is at the top then the minimum shift is made, if it is at the bottom the maximum shift is made. The Sample window name is the file name of the current sample, and the name that is used by the save function. The information line shows the current file format and the playing time of the sample. The Tools Window ----------------- The editing tools are described below. Closing the tools window exits the program. Most of the tools are inactive if no sample has been loaded. The information line shows the largest block of free memory and the name of the person to whom the program is registered. The display below this shows the position of mark 1, the size of the edit buffer and the position of mark 2. The button marked <-- moves mark 1 to the beginning of the display, the button marked --> moves mark 2 to the end of the display. The Keyboard -------------- A lot of functions have keyboard shortcuts, these are given with the functions below. In addition are three others: ESC: Force all windows to redraw. CLR/HOME: Set mark 1 to the beginning of the sample and mark 2 to the end. HELP: summon the online help system. 2.2 The File Menu ------------------- This menu contains program functions relating to files: Open: Load a sample file from disk into memory. This will clear any sample already in memory. SuperSam can load 6 sample formats: - AVR (Audio Visual Research). This is the preferred sample format on Atari systems. It saves all the data about the sample including the mark positions. File extension is .AVR. - RAW (raw sample data). This format contains raw data only, with no playback information. File extension can be .RAW, .SAM, .SND or .SPL among others. - IFF (Amiga Interchange File Format). The preferred sample format on Amiga platforms. SuperSam can recognise two different versions, VHDR, which stores all sample information including mark positions and PARA, which is a cut down version used by Protracker and stores only mark positions, no other data. This implementation cannot handle stereo or 16 bit samples. File extensions are .IFF for VHDR samples and .SPL for PARA samples. - AU (Sun/NeXT audio format). The sample format used by Sun and NeXT computers. SuperSam cannot load all samples of this type, only those stored in 8 bit or 16 linear form. It cannot load mu- law samples. File extensions are .AU and .SND. - WAV (Microsoft RIFF-WAVE). The preferred sample format of Windows users on the PC. This format stores all information except for mark positions. File extension is .WAV. - VOC (Creative Voice). Another PC format, usually used by those who prefer MS-DOS to Windows. This is a completely brain-dead format which cannot handle stereo or 16 bit samples, and stores very little playback data. It cannot even store the playback frequency exactly. File extension is .VOC. SuperSam will attempt to automatically determine the file type, if it cannot then it assumes it is raw data. The keyboard shortcut for open is [control]+[O]. Save: This function saves the current sample to disk, using the filename as displayed at the top of the sample window, in the current format. Keyboard shortcut is [control]+[S]. Save As: This function allows you to rename a sample when you save it. Keyboard shortcut is [control]+[M]. Import Block: This function imports sample data from the GEM clipboard directory into the program clipboard buffer. Keyboard shortcut is [control]+[I]. Export Block: This function exports sample data from the program clipboard buffer to the GEM clipboard directory. Keyboard shortcut is [control]+[E]. File Format: Select current file format. This option determines the format used by all save and export options. The current format is displayed in the information line of the sample window. Keyboard shortcut is [control]+[F]. Convert: Batch conversion system. Select the source path and file mask and the destination path and the destination file format, then hit okay to start conversion. Press Escape to abort conversion after the current file. Keyboard shortcut is [alternate]+[C]. Jukebox: Play all samples in a directory. Select the path and file mask then hit okay to start playing. Press a key to skip to the next sample, or Escape to stop playing. Keyboard Shortcut is [control]+[J]. Save Setup: Save the program set up to disk. This creates a file called supersam.inf which is read in at start up. This saves the default file format, window positions, dialog colours and file paths. Keyboard shortcut is [alternate]+[S]. Quit: Exit the program. Keyboard shortcut is [control]+[Q]. 2.3 The Options Menu ----------------------- This menu holds playback and configuration options. 8 Bit Sound: Playback sample as 8 bit data. 16 Bit Sound: Playback sample as 16 bit data. [Alternate]+[R] toggles between 8 and 16 bit playback. Mono Sound: Playback sample as mono data. Stereo Sound: Playback sample as stereo data. Note that the hardware prevents 16 bit mono playback. [control]+[P] toggles between mono and stereo playback. Speed: Calls a dialog from which you can select the playback frequency. Keyboard shortcut is [control]+[R]. Alerts: Toggles the confirmation alert boxes on and off. These boxes appear when the program thinks you are trying to do something dangerous. Keyboard shortcut is [control]+[A]. Dialog Colour: Allows you to select the background colour and fill style of the dialog boxes used in the program. Keyboard shortcut is [control]+[C]. 2.4 The Help Menu -------------------- This is a link to the online help system. Selecting the subject you want help on brings up the appropriate help page. 2.5 The Sound Buttons ------------------------ Play Once: Play the marked block through once. Keyboard shortcut is [SPACE]. Stop: Stop playing. Keyboard shortcut is [BACKSPACE]. Play Loop: Play the sample from the beginning and then play the marked block in a continuous loop. Keyboard shortcut is [RETURN]. Compress: Half the sample size by stripping every other piece of data. Interpolate: Double the sample size by calculating values between each data item. 2.6 The Block Buttons ----------------------- These buttons all act only on the marked block. Zoom: Zoom in the marked block to fill the window. Unzoom: Zoom out to display the whole sample. Keep: Keep the marked block, but delete everything else. Delete: Delete the marked block but keep everything else. Reverse: Reverse the sample data. Zero: Zero the sample data. Sign: If the data is unsigned, sign it. If the data is signed, unsign it. Save: Save the block to disk. Fade In: Fade the sound in from zero volume to maximum volume. Fade Out: Fade the sound out from maximum to zero volume. Vol Up: Boost the volume by 25%. Vol Down: Reduce the volume by 25%. Vol Max: Boost volume to the maximum possible without causing clipping. Exchange: (Stereo samples only) Swap the left and right channels over. Pan L->R: (Stereo samples only) Pan the stereo image from the left channel to the right channel. Pan R->L: (Stereo samples only) Pan the stereo image from the right channel to the left channel. 2.7 The Clipboard Buttons --------------------------- These functions control the program clipboard buffer. Cut: Copy the marked block into the clipboard and then delete it from the sample. Copy: Copy the marked block into the clipboard. Load: Load a sample into the clipboard. Note - no check is made that the sample is the same type as that in the main buffer. Paste: Insert data from the clipboard into the sample at mark 1. Replace: Replace the marked block with data from the clipboard. Overlay: Combine the marked block with data from the clipboard. This is used to mix two sounds together, although some quality is lost. Swap: Swap the buffers. The main sample buffer becomes the clipboard buffer, the clipboard buffer becomes the main sample buffer. This allows you to edit the data in the clipboard. Clear: Clear the clipboard buffer and free the memory it used. 2.8 The Misc. Buttons ------------------------ Buttons that didn't seem to fit anywhere else... Sample: Switch to sampling mode. The control panel will change to the sampling controls. Connect your sound source to the MIC socket. Click DMA Oscilloscope to toggle the oscilloscope on or off, use the arrowed buttons to control gain and attenuation. Click Start to start recording. Press any mouse button to stop recording. Click Return to go back to the editor controls. Resample: Change the playback frequency of a file. Select the source and destination frequencies. Note - if OTHER is selected you should type the frequency in. LEFT/RIGHT/BOTH: (stereo samples only) This button toggle between editing the left channel only, the right channel only and both channels together. It affects all editing operations EXCEPT sign, save and resample, and of course the convert and playback controls. 2.9 The Convert Buttons -------------------------- Mono <-> Stereo: If mode is mono, the sample is converted to stereo and vice versa. 8 Bit <-> 16 Bit: If mode is 8 bit, the sample is converted to 16 Bit and vice versa. 2.10 The Playback Buttons ---------------------------- These control the sample playback and are equivalent to the controls in the Options menu. Mono/Stereo: Toggle between mono and stereo playback. (Keyboard shortcut is [control]+[P]) 8 Bit/16 Bit: Toggle between 8 bit and 16 bit playback. (Keyboard Shortcut is [alternate]+[R]) xxxxx Hz: (where xxxxx is a number) Select the sample playback frequency. (Keyboard shortcut is [control]+[R]) Jukebox Mode: Activates the jukebox mode, see Jukebox under the File menu. 3 The Controls In Depth ****************************************** This section is designed to help the beginner learn how to use the editing functions to edit the sound. 3.1 General Use ------------------ The program will normally be started by double clicking on the SUPERSAM.PRG icon on the desktop. The program will now load. When loading has been completed, the SuperSam menu bar will appear at the top of the screen and a window (called the tools window) will open containing a panel of control buttons. The Information line of the tools window shows the largest block of memory available to the program, and some text which is either Please Register if the program is unregistered, or else the user's name. Beneath this are 5 white boxes. The first shows the position of the start of block marker, mark 1, and the last shows the position of the end of block marker, mark 2. The number is the offset of the marker from the beginning of the sample, in bytes. The middle box shows the size of the current edit buffer. All of these three will show 00000000 at the moment as nothing has been loaded. The remaining two boxes are buttons marked <-- and --> . These move the first marker to the beginning of the buffer and the second marker to the end of the display respectively. Under these are the sample editing controls, divided into sound, block, clipboard, misc, convert and playback sections. Buttons in the tools window are activated by clicking on them with either the left or right mouse buttons. When a sample is loaded, see below for how to do this, a second window opens, called the display window. It shows a graphic representation of the sound wave. The information line here shows the current sample file format (see below) and the length of the sound in seconds. Clicking in this window sets the block markers. The left mouse button sets mark 1 and the right button sets mark 2. On the right hand edge of the window are two arrow buttons and a slider. Together these make up the sample shifter. Display across the window is a green line, called the zero line. The sample data should be centered on this line. If it isn't then you can use the sample shifter to center it - the up arrow moves the data up and the down arrow moves the data down. The slider controls how big a step is used - at the very top is a very small step and at the very bottom is a very small step. There are keyboard shortcuts for most menu options, which are listed next to the entry in the menu. ^ indicates the Control key and the little box indicates the Alternate key. In addition to these are the following keyboard controls: ESC: Force both windows to redraw. If the windows become corrupted by another program, or by a redraw failure under TOS 4.01, then press ESC to make them redraw. CLR/HOME: This button zooms out the display to show the entire sample and sets the markers to the beginning and end. This is frequently used before saving. HELP: Pressing HELP is equivalent to selecting General from the HELP menu (see below). 3.2 The File Menu -------------------- This menu holds all of the functions to do with files. Sample data is held in various files. Open: This allows you to load a sound sample into the edit buffer so that you can play and edit it. Click Open or press control+O. The familiar fileselector appears, use it to select the sample you wish to load. The program will now attempt to determine the type of the sample and load it into memory. SuperSam currently recognises 6 different sample file formats. These are: 1) Audio Visual Research. This is the best format to use on Atari computers because it stores everything about the sample as well as the sample itself. It is by far the best supported sample format on the Atari. If you do not intend to use your samples on another system, like a PC or something, then stick with AVR. It's tried and tested. Files in this format have the extension .AVR, e.g. FRED.AVR 2) Sun/NeXT Audio Format. This is a file format used by the Sun and NeXT series of computers. Whilst it is a comprehensive format in most respects, one of its major drawbacks is that it does not store the marker positions, so if you save a sound in this format you will lose the mark positions when you reload it. Another drawback is that most samples in this format are in what's called a mu-law format. Your Falcon cannot play these files and SuperSam will complain if you try and load them. However SuperSam will load files containing 8 or 16 bit linear data. Files in this format have the extension .AU or .SND. 3) Amiga Interchange File Format. This sample format is very popular on Amiga computers. It stores all the sample information, but you cannot load or save either stereo or 16 bit samples in this format. There are two forms of this format, called VHDR and PARA. VHDR is the better of the two and stores all sample information. PARA is a cut down version used by (among other things) Protracker ST. PARA version does not save the sample frequency so SuperSam will probably not get the correct playback frequency with PARA files. File extensions are .IFF for VHDR files and .SPL for PARA files. 4) Microsoft RIFF-WAVE This format was designed by Microsoft for use with Windows on the PC. It stores all sample information except for the mark positions. File extension is .WAV. 5) Creative Voice This is another common PC sample format. It is very cumbersome and awkward to use and does not store mark positions. It cannot handle 16 bit or Stereo samples and does not store the sample rate exactly. Basically don't use it unless you have to. File extension is .VOC. 6) Raw data files These are sample files containing only the sample data and no playing information. If SuperSam cannot identify a sample format then it will assume it contains raw data only. Because these files don't have playback data you will have to set up the 8 bit/16 bit, mono/stereo and playback rate manually. File extension include .RAW, .SAM, .SND, .SPL. When the file loads if all goes well the display window will open ready for you to start editing. There are also two warnings that may appear. The first says: "Playback rate does not match available hardware frequencies" and then gives a frequency. This means that the sample was made at a frequency which the Falcon cannot play. SuperSam will then use the nearest frequency which is possible. This means the sample may sound too fast or too slow when you play it back. See Resample, below, to see how to correct this. The second warning occurs if the file contains 16 bit mono sound data. The Falcon cannot play 16 bit mono data and so to play this sample you must convert the data to 8 bit mono or 16 bit stereo. See below under Interpolate and the Convert controls for how to do this. Save: This selection saves the current edit buffer to disk using the current filename (as displayed at the top of the display window) in the current file format (as displayed in the display window information line). If a file with the same name is present on the disk already, then it will be overwritten. Save As: This option allows you to save the edit buffer to disk under a new name. Use the fileselector to enter the new filename then click okay to proceed or cancel to abort the operation. Import Block: This function looks in the GEM Clipboard directory (usually c:\clipbrd\ for sample data in the current format. If it finds some then it loads it into the clipboard buffer. (See Clipboard buttons, below). Export Block: This function does the reverse of above - it looks in the program clipboard and if it finds data there it saves it into the GEM clipboard directory in the current file format. This function combined with the preceding one allow you to cut and paste between different programs, for example between SAM and SuperSam. (No relation...) File Format: This allows you to change the current file format. It calls a dialog from which you click on the format you want to save things in. I firmly recommend that you stick with AVR format unless you are importing or exporting files from another computer system. Convert: This function allows you to convert a whole batch of samples from one format to another. Suppose you had a whole batch of .WAV samples you want to use in a program that will only load .AVR files. Select Convert... and a dialog appears. The source path is the location of the files you wish to convert, the dest. path is where you want the converted files saved and dest. format is the format you want them converted to. Suppose your WAV files are in F:\WAVFILES\ and you want them converted to AVR and stored in F:\AVRFILES\. Click on Source path. Use the fileselector to change directories to F:\WAVFILES\ and then type *.WAV into the filename slot to select all WAV files in the directory. Click Okay. Now click on Dest. Path. Use the fileselector to change the directory to F:\AVRFILES\. You do not need to add a filename. Click OKAY. Now click on Dest. Format. Select AVR from the dialog. Now click on OKAY and the program will convert the files. Note that in the Source Path you can use any file mask, *.WAV, *.*, SOUND??.* and so on to select files, or select a file to just convert one file. You can press Escape during the conversion to stop converting after the current file. Jukebox: The jukebox plays all the sound samples in a directory. Its use is very similar to convert, except that you only have to set the source path and then hit OKAY. Again, any file mask can be used, including ? and * wildcards. Pressing any key skips to the next sample, pressing Escape aborts playing altogether. Save Setup: This selection saves the current program configuration into a file called SUPERSAM.INF. This file is read when the program is run and used to set the defaults. Information saved includes the position and size of the windows, the dialog colour and fill, the default file load path, a default file save path for each file type and the current file format. Quit: Exit the program. Don't click it unless you really want to! 3.3 The Options Menu ----------------------- This menu contains entries to set up the sound playback system and the program configuration. 8 Bit Sound and 16 Bit Sound: These options determine whether the data in the edit buffer is played as 8 bit data or 16 bit data. The currently active option is ticked. 16 bit data generally has higher quality than 8 bit data. Playing a sample in the wrong mode with result is a very hissy or corrupted sample. Mono Sound and Stereo Sound: These options determine whether the edit buffer data is interpreted as stereo data or mono data. The currently active option is ticked. Playing a mono sample in stereo mode results in the sound seeming twice as fast as it should be. Conversely play a stereo sample in mono mode makes it sound twice as slow as it should be. Speed: This option calls the dialog used to set the sample playback rate. Chose the frequency required and click on it or select cancel to abort the operation. If your sample sounds too slow, try using a higher frequency. If your sound sounds too fast, try using a lower frequency. All the frequencies are given in Hertz. 1 Hz is 1 cycle per second. Alerts: Whenever SuperSam thinks what you are trying to do could permanently corrupt your sample data it will pop up an Alert box asking you to confirm what you are trying to do. Some people find these annoying, so this option allows you to turn them on and off. If they are on then the option will be ticked. Dialog Colour: If you don't like the colour of the dialogs then select this option to change it. Select the colour and fill style you prefer from the dialog then select OKAY to install it. 3.4 The Help Menu ------------------- This menu is part of the online help system. Simply choose the subject you want help with and the appropriate help page will appear. The HELP key on the keyboard is equivalent to selecting General from this menu. You can go from the selected page to the next page by click NEXT or by pressing RETURN. Go back a page by clicking PREVIOUS and exit the help system by clicking CANCEL or pressing RETURN on the last page. 3.5 The Sound Buttons ----------------------- This section of the edit window is used for various sound functions. Play Once: This button simply plays the marked block through once. (see the Block section below for how to mark a block). Pressing SPACE on the keyboard also triggers this function. Stop: This button simply stops the sound system if it is currently playing. Pressing BACKSPACE on the keyboard is equivalent to clicking on STOP. Play Loop: This button also plays the sample, but in a slightly different way. First it plays from the beginning of the sample up to mark 1. Then it plays the marked block in a continuous loop. To stop playing, click STOP or press BACKSPACE. Compress: This function is designed to make big samples smaller. It does this by deleting every other piece of data in the edit buffer. This reduces the sample to half its former size. You will also need to half the playback frequency or the sample will sound twice as fast. Although you get a big reduction in sample size by using Compress, you also lose sound quality, so only use it if you have to. Interpolate: This function does the opposite of above. It inserts extra data between each piece of data in the edit buffer. This doubles the sample size but does increase the sound quality slightly. You will have to double the sample playback frequency to maintain the same apparent speed. Of course you will not get the same quality as you would have got by making the sample at the higher frequency. This function can be used to convert mono sample data into stereo data. For example if you load a sample and SuperSam warns you it is 16 bit mono the you need to convert it to stereo. You can't use the MONO <-> STEREO conversion button here because SuperSam won't let you change the mode to 16 bit mono. By clicking on Interpolate you create a fake extra channel, making the data playback correctly in 16 bit stereo mode - providing you don't change the sample frequency. 3.6 The Block Buttons ----------------------- All of these buttons act only on the marked block of data in the edit buffer. To mark a block just click in the display window with the left button where you want the block to start and the right button where you want the block to end. The marked block will be displayed in reverse video - i.e. green on black instead of red on white. The only time a marked block is not reversed in the display is if it fills the entire display window. Zoom: Zoom in the display so that the marked block fills the display. Unzoom: Zoom out the display so that the whole sample is displayed. Keep: This function will delete all the sample data except for the block you have marked, i.e. it will keep the marked block and throw away the rest. For example if you have a sample of someone saying "I am Fred" and you mark "Fred" as a block, after clicking KEEP you will have only a sample saying "FRED". Delete: This function will delete the block you have marked and keep everything else, i.e. it keeps everything except the marked block. For example if you have a sample of "I am Fred" and mark "Fred" as a block, after clicking delete you will have only a sample saying "I am". Reverse: This function reverses the data in the marked block. This allows you to play things backwards. For example if you reverse a sample of "I am Fred" you will end up with something sounding roughly like "dreefhh eeeemmm eeeeeiiii"! Zero: This allows you to wipe a section of a sample. Mark the block then click Zero and the block is reduced to a silent flat line. E.g. if you have "I am Fred" and block mark "am", after hitting Zero you get "I Fred". Zero is usually used to get rid of unwanted clicks or glitches in a sample. Sign: This button signs or unsigns sample data. If you try and play unsigned data you will hear an incredibly noisy and hissy version of the sound, to correct it hit Sign. Save: This function saves the marked block to disk in the current format. Use the fileselector to choose the path and enter a filename. Fade In: This button fades in the sound in the marked block. This means it starts from zero volume at the beginning of the block and gradually increasing to maximum volume at the end of the block. Fade Out: The opposite of Fade in. It starts at maximum volume at the beginning of the block and gradually fades it out to zero volume by the end of the block. Vol Up: This is short for volume up. This button increases the volume of the sound in the marked block by 25%. Be careful of increasing the volume too far - you will get an effect called clipping which distorts the sound. Vol Down: The opposite of above. This button decreases the volume of the sound in the marked block by 25%. Note that as you decrease the volume of the sound you lose information, so if you lower the volume and then raise it again you lose some sound quality. Vol Max: This is a useful button which increases the volume of the marked block to the maximum possible without clipping occurring. Note that occasionally a single volume peak will prevent any increase in volume. If this is the case then you should locate the peak using zoom, block mark it and then either ZERO or VOL DOWN. You can now unzoom and VOL MAX the sample. Exchange: (stereo samples only) This function swaps the left and right stereo channels on stereo samples. Everything that was on the left speaker is now on the right and vice versa. In mono mode this button is greyed out and is not selectable. Pan L->R: (stereo samples only) This performs a fade out on the left channel followed by a fade in on the right stereo channel. The effect of this is to cause the sound to slide from the left speaker to the right speaker as you move through the block. In mono mode this button is greyed out and is not selectable. Pan R->L: (stereo samples only) This is the same as above except that it slides the sound from the right speaker to the left speaker. 3.7 The Clipboard Buttons --------------------------- These buttons control SuperSam's clipboard buffer. This buffer is used to store data so that you can cut bits out of the sound and stick them in elsewhere. Cut: This button copies the marked block into the clipboard buffer and then deletes the marked block. So if you had our "I am Fred" sample and marked "am" as a block, after using Cut you would have "I Fred" in the edit buffer and "am" in the clipboard buffer. Copy: This button just copies the marked block into the clipboard buffer. With the "I am Fred" sample, marking "am" and selecting Copy leaves you with "I am Fred" still in the edit buffer and "am" in the clipboard buffer. Load: This is the other way to get data into the clipboard buffer. (See also Import Block, above). This allows you to load a sample straight into the clipboard buffer ready to mix with the edit buffer. Note, SuperSam tends to assume you know what you are doing and does not check that the sample is the same type as the data in the edit buffer. Paste: This button allows you to insert the data from the clipboard into the edit buffer at the position marked by mark 1, the beginning of the block. For example if you had "I Fred" in the edit buffer and "am" in the clipboard buffer, positioning mark 1 just before Fred and clicking Paste would give you "I am Fred" in the edit buffer. This button is greyed out and not selectable if there is no data in the clipboard. Replace: This button allows you to replace the data in the marked block with the data in the clipboard. For example if you had "I am Fred" in the edit buffer and "Fred" in the clipboard, if you marked "am" as a block and hit Paste you would end up with "I Fred Fred" in the edit buffer. This button is greyed out and not selectable if there is no data in the clipboard. Overlay: This is used to mix the sound in the clipboard buffer with that in the edit buffer. For example if you had "oooooooooooo" in the edit buffer and "I am Fred" in the clipboard and used Overlay, you would get a "I am Fred" with "oooooooooooo" in the background in the edit buffer. Try it and see. It is usually a good idea to use Vol Max after using Overlay. This button is greyed out and not selectable if there is no data in the clipboard. Swap: This button swaps the data in the edit buffer with the data in the clipboard buffer. For example if you had "I am Fred" in the edit buffer and "I'm not Fred" in the clipboard buffer, after using Swap you would have "I'm not Fred" in the edit buffer and "I am Fred" in the edit buffer. This allows you to cut data into the clipboard and then edit it, although you should beware that any time you use Cut, Copy, Load or Import Block the clipboard buffer is changed. This button is greyed out and not selectable if there is no data in the clipboard. Clear: This button deletes all the data in the clipboard buffer, thus freeing the memory it used. This button is greyed out and not selectable if there is no data in the clipboard. 3.8 The Misc. Buttons ------------------------ These are a few buttons which did not have an obvious heading. They control editing and sampling. Sample: This button changes the program mode from editing to sampling, i.e. recording sound from the MIC port. When you click this button the tools window changes from the editing tools to the sampling controls. See below for instructions on using the sampling controls. Resample: This button allows you to change the playback frequency of a sample without altering its apparent speed. Click the Resample button and a dialog appears with two sets of radio buttons and a couple of exit buttons. The top set is used to select the source frequency - i.e. the current playback frequency of the sample. If you select OTHER then you should type the frequency into the Other Frequency: box. The lower set of radio buttons is used to set the destination frequency - the frequency you want the sample to play back at. Again if you select OTHER you should enter the frequency into the Other Frequency box. Then click on RESAMPLE to change the frequency or CANCEL to abort. NOTE - When typing in a frequency that is less than 10000Hz, you must type leading zeros. Typing 6069 is equivalent to typing 60690, you must type 06069 to get 6069Hz. This function is very useful for samples imported from other systems. For example if you load a WAV file produced on a PC then the chances are you will get a message saying: "Sample frequency does not match available hardware frequencies. The frequency is 22050 Hz." Since the Falcon cannot play samples at 22050 Hz, you have to resample it to get the right speed. Click Resample. Select Other in the source frequency box and type in 22050. Select 24585 Hz in the lower box, the click resample. Change the playback frequency to 24585 Hz and you can now play the sample at the correct speed. Note that there is always a loss in sound quality when resampling, although generally changing to a higher frequency is less distorting than going to a lower frequency. Moving to a destination frequency that is an exact multiple of the source frequency will not cause quality loss. Both/Left/Right: (stereo samples only) This button controls the editing mode for stereo samples. When you click on it it cycles through Both, Left and Right modes, meaning edit both channels, the left channel only or the right channel only. This setting affects all operations except SIGN and SAVE and of course the Sound Buttons. 3.9 The Convert Buttons ------------------------- MONO <-> STEREO: This button converts a mono sample into a stereo sample, or a stereo sample into a mono sample. Which conversion occurs depends on the current mode, if SuperSam is in mono mode, then it will convert the sample to stereo and change the mode to stereo. If SuperSam is in stereo mode it will convert the sample to mono and switch to Mono mode. Note that the Falcon cannot play 16 bit mono samples, so whilst you can convert a 16 bit stereo sample to 16 bit mono, you will no longer be able to play it back as the sound system won't allow you to change to 16 bit mono. Also, as you cannot switch the program mode to 16 bit mono, it is not possible to use this function to convert 16 bit mono to 16 bit stereo. 8 Bit <-> 16 Bit: This button is similar to the previous one except that it converts between 8 bit and 16 bit samples. You should note that as SuperSam cannot be switched to 16 bit mono mode, in order to convert 8 bit mono to 16 bit stereo you need to convert to stereo first and then do the conversion to 16 bit. Similarly when converting 16 bit stereo to 8 bit mono you should convert to 8 bit first and then convert to mono. 3.10 The Playback Buttons --------------------------- These buttons duplicate the first 5 functions in the Options menu and both control and display the current playback mode. Mono/Stereo: This button toggles the playback mode between mono and stereo. As the hardware prevents 16 bit mono playback, it will not allow you to switch to mono if SuperSam is in 16 bit mode. 8 Bit/16 Bit: This button toggles the playback between 8 bit and 16 bit modes. As the hardware prevents 16 bit mono playback, if you change to 16 bit mode, SuperSam will automatically change to Stereo mode. xxxxx Hz: (where xxxxx is a frequency value) This button displays the current playback frequency. Clicking on it calls the dialog box from which you can select a new playback frequency. Jukebox Mode: This is equivalent to selecting Jukebox... from the File menu. 3.11 Sampling --------------- Sampling is converting analogue sound into a digital form stored inside the computer. SuperSam has not been designed with sampling as a priority, but it is included for those who need it. To sample a sound, first select the frequency you wish to sample at. The higher the frequency, the larger the sample but the higher the quality. Then select switch the the mode you want, 8 bit mono, 8 bit stereo or 16 bit stereo. Normal settings for amateur sampling are 12 or 16 Khz and 8 bit mono. Then click SAMPLE, in the Misc... buttons section. The tools window will change to show the sampling controls. Also, any sound coming into the MIC socket at the rear of the machine can now be heard through the computer. You should now plug your sound source into the MIC socket at the rear of the computer. If you are sampling from a Hi-fi or cassette deck rather than a microphone, you should turn its volume down to zero before attaching it to prevent damage to the Falcon's input circuits. Now turn on the oscilloscope by clicking on DMA Oscilloscope. The oscilloscope shows the volume of the input. Increase the volume of your sound source until a clear wave shows, but do not increase it so far that the wave goes flat on the top or bottom - this means that clipping is occurring and your volume is too high. If you are using a microphone then you will probably need to increase the input gain to get a reasonable wave. Do this by clicking on the up arrows at the top of the left and right gain controls. If you find you are getting feedback from the computer's sound output then either turn its volume down or increase the left and right attenuation with the attenuation controls. When you are ready to begin recording, click start. The system will now record all the sound that comes in the MIC socket until either you run out of memory, or you press a mouse button to stop. Now click Return to go back to the editing controls. 4. Editing Techniques ********************************************* This section is intended to help the user learn some useful techniques I have discovered in editing samples. 4.1 Sound Effects ------------------- 1) Echo Adding an echo is fairly easy to do, using the clipboard overlay function. Load the sample you want to add an echo to into the edit buffer. Now block mark a small chunk of it, and copy it into the clipboard. Click Swap to edit the clipboard data, and then click Zero, and swap again. You now have a few seconds of silence in the clipboard. Add this to the beginning of the sample by clicking <-- to move mark 1 to the beginning and then clicking Paste. Now make sure the marks are at the beginning and end of the sample and click Copy. Now you have a second copy of the sample in the clipboard. Hit Swap again to edit it. Block mark a small segment of the silent bit at the beginning, and hit Delete. If you want the echo to be quieter than the original, hit Vol Down until you are satisfied with the volume. Hit Swap again to return to the main buffer. Now click overlay. This adds the clipboard data to the edit buffer. Select Vol Max and then play the sample. Voila - one echo. This can of course be repeated to get multiple echoes. 2) Morphing Yes morphing is possible with sound too! Morphing with sound samples is a way of gradually turning one sample into another. The two sounds you want to morph must be of the same type and playback frequency, and ideally about the same length. Load in the first sample. Block mark the second half of the sample and then select fade out. Now change to AVR format and save the sample (AVR is used so that the block marks are preserved). Load in the second sample. Block mark a section at the beginning of the sample, roughly the same length as the fade out you made at the end of the first sample. Hit Fade In. Now change to AVR format, and then hit the BLOCK SAVE button, to save just the marked block. Call the sample FADEIN.AVR or something similar. Now hit Delete to remove the fade in from the current sample. Select BLOCK SAVE again to save the rest of the sample, call it REST.AVR. Now reload the first sample. The fade out section should still be marked. Hit Clipboard LOAD and load the file FADEIN.AVR into the clipboard. Now select Overlay to mix the fade in into the fade out on the original. Hit Vol Max. Now hit clipboard load and select REST.AVR. Position mark 1 as close to the end of the sample as you can, repeatedly zooming in on the sample end will help to do this. Then select Paste to add the rest of the second sample to the end of the first. Now hit Unzoom, and then <-- and --> to reset the marks to the beginning and end of the new sample. Press Play to hear the resulting morph. 4.2 Ripping Samples --------------------- This section is intended to help you to 'rip' samples used in other programs. Suppose you have a game or demo with some interesting sound effects which you think might be sound samples. here's how to find them and strip them out of the program file. First you must make sure the program is not packed, i.e. all the data in it is uncompressed. The easiest way to do this is to load it into the Mega Depacker program, which will decompress it if possible and allow you to save the uncompressed program. Now run SuperSam and click Open. Select the program file with the fileselector and SuperSam will load it as raw data. Change the playback frequency to about 12 Khz and make sure the mode is 8 bit mono. Click Play Once. You will hear a variety of buzzing, beeping and hissing as SuperSam plays data that is not sound data, but you will be able to hear any sounds that are present. If there doesn't seem to be any clear samples, change to 16 bit mode and try again. If you still can't hear any samples then you are out of luck. Otherwise you should be able to locate the section of the data which contains the samples. Mark this section and select Keep to remove all the other unwanted data. Now you must determine the correct playback frequency. Do this simply by increasing the frequency if the sounds are too slow, or decreasing it if they are too fast. Now you can save the samples in any form you like. Note that by careful editing in RAW 8 bit mono mode it is possible to replace samples in a game program with your own. Load the program in as RAW data as before and locate the samples you want to change. Note - you must not change the program mode from 8 bit mono! If you do then the program file format may be corrupted meaning you cannot run the program any more because SuperSam will automatically correct a stereo sample to an even length and a 16 bit stereo sample to a length divisable by 4. Load the sample you wish to have in the program into the clipboard. Mark the sample you wish to replace in the edit buffer very carefully, then select replace. Make sure the program is in RAW mode and then save the file. The sample you replace it with must be of the same type, mode and playback frequency as the original and you must be very careful not to disturb the actual program data or the program will no longer run. It is possible to use this technique to change the voice of the Talking Clock. Remember that under UK law, whilst it is legal to modify programs for your own use it is _NOT_legal_ to distribute the modified program, UNLESS it is public domain software. Public domain is not the same as freeware - if the program has a copyright message anywhere in it you may not distribute an altered version without the express permission of the Copyright holder. YOU MAY NOT DISTRIBUTE AN ALTERED VERSION OF SUPERSAM! 4.3 Converting Other Formats ------------------------------ Although at present SuperSam only knows 6 sample formats, it is possible to load others as RAW data. You will then have to find the correct playback speed and mode by trial and error - keep trying until it sounds right. You will also need to delete the header information at the beginning of the sample, or you may hear a click as it is interpreted as sound data. You will not be able to load compressed or mu-law samples in this way, but 8 and 16 bit linear samples can usually be loaded. 4.4 Correcting Bad Samples ---------------------------- Correcting bad samples is not easy. However there are some ways to improve the sound. If your sample is very hissy, then this may be improved by resampling the data to a lower sample frequency as this cuts out a lot of higher frequencies. If your sound source tends to produce a lot of hiss then you can make better samples by sampling at a much higher frequency than you want (32 Khz rather than 12Khz) and then using resample to shift the playback frequency down. Another way is to use the graphic equaliser or tone control on your sound source to turn down the higher frequencies. If your source produces hiss or hum at the same volume regardless of the volume setting, you can minimise it by reducing the gain controls on the Sampling control panel to zero, and carefully increasing the volume on the source. If you have a stereo sample from a record or tape, you may find that there are in places clicks or scratches on either one channel or the other. You can remove these by selecting LEFT or RIGHT as the editing mode and then zooming right in on the click, block marking it and then using ZERO to wipe it. Don't use DELETE here or you will end up with the channels out of sync, which is good for a laugh occasionally, but not really very useful. 5 Program Notes *************************************************** 5.1 Why was SuperSam written? ------------------------------- It came to my attention that there were no cheap sample editors suitable for amateur sound enthusiasts using the full power of the Falcon030. Whilst there are huge numbers of public domain and shareware direct-2-disk recording programs, these are great for creating samples and generally speaking extremely lacking in the editing samples department. There are Replay 16 and Clarity Falcon from Hisoft, but these sell at 80 and 100 pounds respectively and so are not really accessible to the poor students like me. So, I decided one boring winter afternoon that I could always write my own... 5 months and much work later, SuperSam is completed. Well, I say completed but actually it will probably never be complete as I keep adding more to it, but if I don't release it now I probably never will. And besides - I need the money! 5.2 Compatibility ------------------- SuperSam was written on a Falcon030 running TOS 4.01, and so should be 100% compatible with any other Falcon with TOS 4.01. It has also been extensively tested on a Falcon030 with TOS 4.02 so that should be okay too. I have not been able to test the program under TOS 4.04 so although all the code is legal OS calls, because of radical changes in the sound subsystem between 4.01 and 4.04 I cannot guarentee that everything will work properly. SuperSam also runs happily under MultiTOS with MiNT version 1.04+. Although it is not really designed to be multitasked, it happily runs alongside any other programs that are MultiTOS friendly. However, there may be some conflict if you try and multitask SuperSam and another program that uses the DMA sound system. Even running two copies of SuperSam is not guarenteed to work. SuperSam will not happily coexist with SAM, the System Audio Manager, or other programs which assign samples to system events. This is due to the nature of the DMA sound system and is unavoidable. If you have problems, or functions don't seem to work, you should turn off any system event sounds and try again. SuperSam can run in virtual RAM (as provided by OUTSIDE or VRAM), with a slight problem. The DMA sound system cannot access virtual RAM, so you will be unable to play samples if SuperSam is set to run in virtual RAM. However you will be able to load and edit those HUGE samples you made by d2d recording with another program. I take no responsibility for the speed of SuperSam running with a large virtual RAM buffer - it can get _very_ slow. Improved virtual RAM support will be added in a later version. The correct settings for SUPERSAM.PRG to use virtual RAM are: Run in ST RAM, Malloc from alternative RAM. SuperSam requires a horizontal resolution of 640 pixels, and will not run in less. It looks at its best in 16 or more colours, with a vertical resolution of at least 400 pixels, but will run in less. SuperSam will not run on a computer without a 68030 processor, DSP, 16 bit CODEC DMA sound and a DMA sound connection matrix. At present, the only computer with all these features is a Falcon030 so SuperSam will only run on a Falcon. 5.3 Version Revisions ----------------------- 23/05/94 - v1.00 Exclusive ST Review version. 12/06/94 - v1.01 First freely distributable version. 5.4 In Future Versions ------------------------ There are many things I intend to add to SuperSam in the future. Among these are: - Direct to Disk recording, playing, _and_ editing. - Improved Virtual RAM/Alternative FAST RAM support. - DSP sound effects - DSP Fast Fourier Transform - DSP frequency filtering 5.5 Credits ------------- Credit where credit is due: Programming done in 68030 assembler by Daniel Hastings. Thanks to: Hisoft for Devpac-3 which made it painless. Daron Brewood for much testing, suggestions and general encouragement without which development would have ground to a halt months ago. Steve Taylor and Mark Baker for advice on GEM legal programming and how to get event_multi to check for either mouse button. Michael Fung for clarifying how the Falcon sound system works. Robert Cooper for help in deciphering the DMA sound interrupts. Bjork for the Debut album which made hours of programming much more enjoyable. (Okay, so it's a free ad for her... Wanna make something of it?) 5.6 Contact addresses ------------------------ Postal letters should be sent to: Daniel Hastings, Aspenglow, Rectory Road, Alderbury, Salisbury, Wiltshire. SP5 3AD (ENGLAND) Please enclose an SAE or IRC if you want a fast reply. I can also be reached on many computer networks. InterNet is preferred if possible and is much more likely to get a fast response. My InterNet email address is: cs93dlh@dcs.ex.ac.uk I can also be reached through four BBS networks. Send netmail to the following addresses: TurboNet: 100:1011/0.6 FidoNet : 2:440/108.6 AtariNet: 51:502/100.6 NeST : 90:102/140.6 Its only fair to warn you that mail to these addresses may not be collected immediately. ********************END OF DOCUMENT********************************