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Text File | 1993-12-21 | 18.6 KB | 534 lines

Doc.english - Documentation for SOUNDEffect (c) 1992, 1993 Sven Bühling V 2.10 - October 1993 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Preface ---------- SOUNDEffect is a program which offers many facilities to edit samples. It's very useful for musicians with some experience in working with samples. Here are some special features: 1) User interface with gadgets for all functions. The gadgets are arrenged into panels. (It's of course impossible to get all gadgets on one screen.) 2) Full stereo support in all functions 3) Frequency, amplitude and panorama modulation with an envelop waveform wich you can paint with the mouse. 4) Normal echo and a special reverb effect. 5) Free hand editing of the sample is possible. 6) Mixing of upto 8 samples in one time (mixer) 7) Chorus effect. 8) High and low pass filter with adjustable cut off frequency. 9) Expander, compresser, limiter. 10) Noise generator. 11) There are 8 temporary buffers for samples. You can choose to which path these buffer are saved. 12) All usualy function like copy, paste, cut, insert, delete, loop, swap, reverse, change of pitch and volume and much more. Thanks to: - all registered Users - all BEta Testers - Matt Dillon for DICE - Claudio Zani for TDS - Teijo Kinnunen for OctaMED - Martin W:Scott for icalc and YAK - Stefan Becker for ToolManager - Jan van den Baard for GadToolsBox - Anders Bjerin for the C-Manual - Electronic Arts for DPaint 2. Copyright ------------ SOUNDEffect and the Docs are copyrighted by Sven Bühling. SOUNDEffect is SHAREWARE. You are only allowed to distribute it if: - all doc-file of one language are copied together with the program - program and doc-files remain unchanged - the disk must not cost more than $ 5 (DM 5) If you get any damages using my program, I'm not responsible. If you like this program you should pay the share. For 20 US$ or 30 DM you will become a registered user. That includes mailing of the most recent release together with a so called keyfile wich enables protected functions in the FD-release. You can pay the share in cash, via Euro-Scheck or International Money Order. Kontonr.: 46047295 BLZ: 830 544 82 (Kreissp. Stadtroda) Address: Sven Bühling, H.-Danz-Str. 9, 07629 Hermsdorf, GERMANY Internet: osb@hpux.rz.uni-jena.de IRC: Gobel Without a valid keyfile there are following restrictions: - Samples wich are longer than 10000 bytes are displayed only three times - the preferences can not be saved - only one sample can be saved each session 3. Updates ---------- Soon I will start working for version 3.0. Then there will be again some important changes in the user interface. All panel become draggable windows. So you can use every screen mode and you can open as many panels as you like. After that I hope to find time to include features like: - Fourier transformation - optional Audio Device output - AIFF-Support / MIDI-Sample-Dump - better reverb effect - ARexx port - support for several samplers - internal 16 Bit processing (probably V 4.0) If you are registered you do not depend on me to get your updates. You can download them for instance from aminet or from Fish disks. If you want to order updates directly by the author one update costs 5$ including Disk and mailing. 4. Getting started / Screenmode ------------------------------- SOUNDEffect should work on every AMIGA with Kickstart >= 1.3 and at least 1 MByte RAM. INTERLACE - TRUE - opens an interlaced screen FALSE - default XPOS - x-Position YPOS - y-Position (To center the screen if your Workbench uses overscan) EXTRAMENU - TRUE - if you open an interlace screen you can choosse to display the menu panel every time. FALSE - default Beisp.: Start from CLI for NTSC-Amigas: SOUNDEffect INTERLACE TRUE EXTRAMENU TRUE YPOS 30 Start from WB: INTERLACE=TRUE EXTRAMENU=TRUE YPOS=30 (Enter these values to the tooltypes field) 5. User interface ----------------- There are three general areas on display. On the top of the screen you can see the logo and some important informations. There are project name, size of the sample and the status line. You should always have a look to this status line. In the middle there is the area for sample display or for the big panels. You can get back from a big panel to the sample display by pressing the right mouse button in this range. Below that you can find by default the menu panel where you can select wich panel is to be displayed. But there are some small panels too wich cover the menu. You can get back again by pressing the right mouse button. Most of the big panels have three very important gadgets on the right side. They are |LEFT|, |BOTH| and |RIGHT|. With these three gadgets you can select whether the current function should affect the left, rigth or both channels of the sample. 6. The Panels ------------- 6.1. The menu """"""""""""" The menu is displayed at the bottom of the screen. If not, use the right mouse button in this range to switch back. You can reach all panels via this menu or by the function keys (described later). The left gadgets are for the small panels - the right ones for the big panels in the middle of the screen. 6.2. Sample display """"""""""""""""""" Click the right mouse button in the middle of the screen to get the Sample display. The first important thing you should know is that you can choose whether one or two "windows" shell be displayed, This can be done with the both gadgets on the left side in the middle. On the left side of each window there are some gadgets to select what you want to display in it. |L| left channel |R| right channel |1|..|5| wave buffer 1..5 On the right side there are the zoom gadgets. |(pocket lens)| zoom in |(crossed)| zoom out |RANGE| show the selected range |ALL| show all You can select a range in the sample or wave buffer by dragging with the right mouse button over this area you want to select. Via LeftShift-RMB you can also set the range begin - RightShift-RMB sets the end of the range. In the wave buffer you can "draw" directly by dragging with the LMB. The sample is a little bit protected against this. To edit the sample by freehand drawing you have to hold a shift key while dragging with LMB. 6.3. The Disk I/O-panel """"""""""""""""""""""" The panel is used to load or save samples and WAVE-buffers. It is similar to other file requestors. You can change text and contents of the four directory buttons. This is explained in the paragraph about preferences-panel. Here and in all other panels the affect gadgets at the right side can be used to selected whether the left, the right or both channels of the sample should be affected of the current operation. File format: You can load samples in one of the following formats: IFF, Future-Sound (obsolete) or RAW. If the sample is not identified as IFF or Future-Sound it will automaticly loaded as RAW. If the IFF-format is corrupt (Action Replay!) you can choose if you want to load it RAW. Then you should not forget to cut the beginning of the sample because there is the corrupt IFF-Header and that does usually not sounde very well. You can save your samples either RAW or IFF. In RAW-format you loose all additional information like loop, rate or project name. It is not possible to save stereo samples as RAW. Using IFF-format you will not loose any information. To secure this also for stereo samples SOUNDEffect creates upto three additional chunks, wich probably cannot be used by any other program. But this doesn't matter because other programs will ignore these chaunks and a minimal part of information will be lost. That is unavoidable. In the IFF-format wich uses for instance Audio-Master both channels have the same length and loop. Data behind the end of the loop are not allowed. The three additional chunks remove these restrictions. But if you load a stereo sample by SOUNDEffect into the Audio-Master you will of course loose data behind the end of the loop and the loop values of the second channel. If you want to use stereo samples in Tracker programs (Protracker, MED, ...) you should save and load it as two different samples because they cannot handle stereo samples. Now the program has got the ability to load and save 16 Bit RAW samples. After loading the program converts them to 8 Bit, but you have the chance to maximize the amplitude of the sample before doing that (->better quality). 6.4. The Play-panel """"""""""""""""""" Here you can play the sample. |SAMPLE| plays the whole sample |RANGE| play the selected range only |DISPLAY| plays the visible part of the sample |STOP| stops output |USE LOOP| to choose whether the loop (if set) should be used |FILTER| to switch on/off the hardware filter Rate, Period, Note - different ways to enter the play rate Examples for notes: C-4, H-4, B-4, D#3, Gb3 (H-4 is equal to B-4 - use Bb4 for the 'german' B) Volume the volume |1+2| |3+4| wich audio channels should be used Project Name - here you can modify the project name The audio output is done directly via DMA. Since version 1.25 the audio device is not used anymore due to some problems with MED. (No chance to put out anything via audio device if MED is loaded.) This time it is not possible to put out samples wich are longer than 128K. But you can set a range and play it to hear the ending of such very long samples. (Will be improved sometimes.) 6.5. The Range-panel """""""""""""""""""" Here you can manipulate the whole sample or a part (range) of it in different ways. Ranges can be selected by dragging over the part you wish while you keep the right mouse button pressed. Please remeber to the meaning of the |LEFT|, |RIGHT| and |BOTH| gadgets. They are very importent in the whole program. |COPY| copies the range to the copy buffer |PASTE| does the opposite thing |DELETE| deletes the range (sets all bytes to zero) |CUT| cuts the range out of the sample |INSERT| inserts the copy buffer at the selected position |SAMPLE<->CBUF| exchanges sample and copy buffer |REMOVE CBUF| frees the memory allocated by the copy buffer |ADD| the contents of the copy buffer is added directly to the sample data starting at the selected position |MIX| Here it is impossible to get distortions. With the prop-gadget you can determine which in ratio the copy buffer is mixeed with the sample. The amlitude of the is reduced appropriate. |START|, |END| to select whether the begining or the end of the range should be affected by the following operations |->| shifts 1 byte to the right |<-| ... |->0| shifts right until a zero in the sample is found |0<-| .. (By holding of one of the shift keys and clicking with RMB you can set the range borders seperatly in the display.) |ALL| the whole sample is marked as range |NO RANGE| removes range markers |REVERSE| the range is reversed |SWAP| swaps the range (-27 -> +27) |SET LOOP| takes the current range as loop (if you play the sample this part is played repeatly). To remove a loop: |NO RANGE| and then |SET LOOP| |GET LOOP| shows the current loop by setting the range to its values |APPEND| you can enter how many bytes should be appended to the sample |SHIFT UP| |SHIFT DOWN| the range is shifted up/down by the entered value |AMP| in the Prop-gadget you can enter to wich value the volume of the range should be changed (0-200%) |MAX| maximal amplitude without distortion Via the copy buffer you may exchange data between both channels. Also you have the chance to copy/paste between WAVE-buffers and the sample channels. Only if you have selected |BOTH| the second channel of the copy buffer is used. 6.6. The Edit-panel """"""""""""""""""" This panel offers some functions to manipulate the 5 WAVE-buffers wich are necessary for several effect functions. It is very similar to the range-panel. So I will explain only those functions wich are different. Affects |1| |2| |3| |4| |5| Here you can select wich WAVE-buffer schould be affected by the current operation. (VERY IMPORTANT!!) |ECHO BUFFER| There is a special type of WAVE-buffer - the ECHO-buffer. ECHO-buffers are only useful for a special echo effect of SOUNDEffect. You can draw only beams in them. By this gadget you can select whether the current affected WAVE-buffer should be an ECHO-buffer or not. The buffer is cleared if you click it. Standard waveforms: The following standard waves are available: sinus, [Sägezahn??], triangle and requtangular. They are copied in the range if you have selected one. Else the fill the whole buffer. |MULTI| multiplies the contents of the range SHIFT you can shift the range in all four directions ZOOM zooms in both achsises are available (Prop-gadget: 0-200%) 6.7. The Preferenceces-panel """""""""""""""""""""""""""" Here you can modify and save some preferences. COLOURS screen colours |INVERS| inverted sample display |TRANSPARENT| transparent sample display |FASTDIR| scans directories much faster but does not display them while reading Button text, directory for the four free buttons in the Disk I/O-panel |SAVE PREFS| saves the prefs in the file "DEVS:SOUNDEffect.prefs" 6.8. The Buffers-panel """""""""""""""""""""" With this panel you can manage the 8 temporary buffers for samples. They are useful to make working (or security) copies of the current sample or to mix some samples very comfortable (f.i. to make chords). |PLAY| plays the buffer |LOAD| loads it |SAVE| ... |REMOVE| ... string gadget Here you can edit the name of the temporary buffer (will be the project name after loading it) In the mixer you can find a slider for the volume of each buffer. If you want to make sure that no distortions occur set the main volume to 100%. But notice that the programm will inform you when distortions occur in ALL functions (f.i. add, mix, chorus, echo, shift, AM ...). You can select between two different mix modi: Using |OLD| the sample data are added byte by byte without observing the record rates of the different samples. In the |REAL| mode the samples are detuned before mixing them. Please notice that the result of the mixing process will be copied into the current sample. Make sure that the current sample is long enough. The data of the current sample are lost after mixing. 6.9. The Modulation-panel """"""""""""""""""""""""" There are four different kinds of modulation available in SOUNDEffect this time: AM, FM and panorama modulation. |MODULATION| starts computation Wave |1|..|5| wich WAVE should be used |AMPLITUDE| amplitude modulation Strength strength in % 100% => modulation between 0 and 200% |FREQUENCY| frequency modulation Rate +- range of changing the record rate |PANORAMA| modulation of panorama position Strength 100% is maximum |FILTER| filter modulation |H| high pass |L| low pass MIN minimal cut off frquency MAX maximal cut off frequency Filter enter cut off frequency in Hz |LOW| low pass |HIGH| high pass filter Notice that the result also depends on the current record rate because the cut off frequency relates to this play rate. Shorten The sample is shortened from the end to the last occurence of the entered amplitude (enter in %). |DETUNE| The sample can be tuned and detuned using this function. The entered rate becomes the new record rate while the frequancy you here playing the sample (with RETURN key) keeps equal. |MIX CHANNELS| useful to decrease the panorama size of a sample (prop gadget rigth => two equal mono samples) |LEFT->RIGHT| copies the left channel to the right one |RIGHT->LEFT| ... |LEFT<->RIGHT| exchanges them 6.10. The Echo-panel """""""""""""""""""" |START COMPUTATION| starts computation of the echo/reverb effect DATA FROM here you have to select where the data (to mix up) shell come from |SAMPLE| take the whole sample (for real echo) |RANGE| the range only |COPY BUFFER| takes the contents of the copy buffer (so you can take data wich do not belong to the sample to make a good or strange reverb effect) DELAY FROM selection where the delay of the echos should come from |INPUT| the conventional way - constant time between all echos Delay enter in bytes or ms (the ms-value relates to the current record rate) Strength damping (100% -> all echos have full volume; 50% -> 50, 25, 12...); Number numer of echos, 0 -> unlimited ECHO BUFFER volume and delay of the echos are taken from an ECHO-buffer - useful for reverb effects Strength maximum volume PANORAMA FROM useful for stereo echos (select BOTH) |MONO| ... |WAVE| take a WAVE-buffer |RANDOM| accidental Strength 0-100% The following functions do all have in common that they usually do not increase the quality of the sample. All effects excepting noise have no strength gadget. You can use them repeated to increase their efficancy. |NOISE| mixes noise to the range |COMPRESS| compresses (silent parts become louder - loud parts lower |EXPAND| the opposite thing |LIMITER| makes the sample louder without distorting it |DIST1| |DIST2| two different distortion effects 6.11. The Chorus-panel """""""""""""""""""""" The chorus effect makes upto four voices wich are a little bit detuned and delayed. The they are mixed and you get a fuller sound. |START COMPUTATION| ... You can adjust the volume of each voice and the main volume. Moreover you have some slider for detuneing, delaying of each voice. If you select BOTH you can use the panorama slider too. 7. Keyboard shortcuts --------------------- Like MED you have more than two octaves organized similar to a piano. RETURN play the sample with its record rate SPACE stops playing F1 - F9 to switch between the panels F10 switches to sample display Del brings menu Help start picture