======================================================================== File: SoundBeach_00_AA.tgz Author: Yann KIEFFER (Yann.Kieffer@imag.fr) Release: 0.0 (July 24th, 1997) Compatibility: AA-DR9 Location: contrib/audio/SoundBeach_00_AA.tgz Description: Sound editor featuring fresh & new concepts Notes: It's the first version, I wouldn't even call it pre-alpha. Still, I think it can be nice to look at. ======================================================================== SOUND BEACH, version 0.0 - July 24th 1997 by Yann Kieffer - Yan.Kieffer@imag.fr FEATURES: * usable down-to-the-sample zoom. * (virtually) illimited files playing simultaneously. * live-play (plays samples under the cursor while it's being moved) for easier location * nice and efficient markers/regions concepts. They should be the first bricks in the achievement of tools that naturally help non-destructive and repeated edition. * "many bits of sound all around the screen" concept - choosing between several effect settings will really be chosing between windows... when effects will be there :) * doesn't eat up much resources - should run nicely on any PowerPC-based computer running BeOS. INSTALLATION: None. QUICK START: Type SoundBeach ... to open sound files from the command line or SoundBeach to get an open panel and open files from there - multiple selection allowed. YOU NEED SOUND FILES TO USE THIS VERSION The only format supported right now is raw (ie headerless) 44100Hz mono signed shorts (16 bit samples). WHERE DO I FIND FILES? You probably have a CD-Player near you. Save some music from there, and then use sox (provided in the package) to do the conversion: sox -V -t sw -c 1 sox is smart enough to figure out which format is used for your sound file. It's smart enough to let you force it do what you want it to do, too. Read its doc to know more. HOW DO I USE THIS SOFTWARE? There are some new and (hopefuly) powerful concepts to get familiar with. * Selecting modes: There are two modes for selection: Point and Region. They really look like a paint program's "free drawing" and "selection/grabbing" mode. Point mode lets you set and move the playing mark (red), set markers (blue), and find music with the live-play feature (right mouse button). While listening to music (Play/Pause button), you can re-set the playing marker with the left mouse button. You set a (blue) marker at the playing mark position with the help of button "Set". Note that it won't change to blue, since the playing mark's display has got the priority. Just move the playing mark to see the marker you've just set. Currently, the only way to remove marks is removing them all with the "Remove" button. Region mode lets you chose regions, drag them to views (see paragraph below), and operate on them (Cut). To unselect a region, left-click on it. Left-clicking outside the active region initiates a selection. The selection always stop on markers. There are always markers at both ends of each sample. The region selected is the smallest marker-bordered region containing both the first click and the last one. Note that they need not be given in the same view. * Navigating through sound: There is one window per sample. There are as many views on this one sample as you want. To add a view, just click the "New" button. To remove views, click the "X" button on the right of the view. It's this same button you drag regions to to expand them to the whole size of the view. Each view has got a scrollbar and a slider. The scrollbar's use is pretty straightforward. Clicking on the arrows and outside the bar work well too. The slider lets the user chose how much of a sample the view is showing. It's really a command to the size of the bar of the scrollbar. Since size factors can be quite big, the slider's values are growing logarithmically. Thus, you've got the same relative precision on this size all over the slider. With the help of multiple views, this feature is supposed to help work nearer the sample. The top view can't be closed (without closing the window). It's always displaying the full sample. The zoom button (in the window tab) zooms horizontally - which helps having a better resolution. TIPS It's easier to use the live-play feature with a really slow mouse. COPYRIGHT SoundBeach is copyrighted Yann Kieffer. sox is copyrighted Lance Norskog and other contributors - see sox notice for details. This software comes with no warranty at all. The author can't be held responsible for damages caused by he use of this software. LICENSE Right now, SoundBeach is freeware. Sources aren't distributed for sanity reasons. They should come with time (and clean-up). Postcards, small bills of any currencies and any other kind of gifts are warmly welcome, as are feature requests and comments. If SoundBeach should some day turn to ShareWare, I still plan to let people have a fully-functional version for free. Some people make good use of software and have no money at all - that's the way it goes. FUTURE Since there's still nothing in it, the future section is quite big. * Sound effects! Simple effects first, and then spectral effects/visualisation/treatments. * Improve design! * Datatypes support. * Sound recording. * Stereo sound support. * Mixing samples. The first four should be there soon enough - the two others will take more time. ***