ReadMe for Sound Probe 1.74 (CU Amiga Demo) (10/11/97) ====================================================== In the CU Amiga demo version of SoundProbe16 the save option has been removed. This means you are not able to save ANY work you do. Also, the sampling and audio rates have been limited to 14KHz, and real-time FX have been fixed at 8363Hz. The full version of SoundProbe available from HiSoft has a maximum rate of 65KHz! (and of course the save options work!). The demo version also contains a "tame" annoying requester (I hate them, they always put me off looking at software), but this one pops up rarely, and puts longer and longer spaces between appearances. It's just there to remind you not to continue using the SP demo as an application (it is only a DEMO!) Please support SoundProbe, I'd like to make it into the BEST sound editing system on ANY platform, I'm willing to stick with the Amiga until one of us dies first! Notice ====== Due to Sound Probes heavy use of the systems interrupts and high performance requirements, it is important to ensure that your system is running at its maximum speed. Ways to do this are as follows: If your system has a small amount of fast RAM (e.g - less than 4 Mb), then it is important that whilst running Sound Probe, you have as much free fast RAM as possible. If possible, ensure Sound Probe is executed without many other programs/utilities being loaded into RAM first. It is also advisable to have the systems ExecBase, the System Stack and VBR mapped to fast RAM. Programs such as "BlizzMagic", "FastExec", "MCP" and other "system enhancers" will map these for you, this gives the system improved performance and hence ensures Sound Probe runs at the maximum performance for your system. In the MISC page of the settings window is an option `Fast Stack'. This will map the system stack into fast RAM. If this is disabled then it is already in fast RAM. Basically it means that sampling/audio will perform at the best possible speed for your system. Before enabling it, a warning appears. Don't worry about trying it, just ensure you have nothing running, and all your work saved etc. When SoundProbe quits, the original stack will be restored. It is important to make sure you've read your User manual for full details of how each part of Sound Probe works, and what you need to do. It isn't as complex as it may seem at first sight. A1200 Owners/Accelerator Owners ------------------------------- If your A1200 has an accelerator board with MMU, it is important to ensure that your kickstart ROM is mapped into fast RAM, this ensures Sound Probe will function at full efficiency. Read your accelerators manual for details on how this can be done. !Important! =========== When first using Sound Probe on your system, it is advised that you test how high the sampling and audio rates can be set without causing your system to become unusably slow, or to lock up. To ensure your system doesn't lock up, ensure that the fail counts for audio/sampling/monitoring are low enough for you not to have to wait too long before it stops (See the User Manual for details). If your system is unable to have them very high, it is advised that when sampling, you set the sampler options to use the monitoring rate whilst it monitors, and ensure that this is set low enough. Switching off the system enabled option in the sampling window will give maximum performance whilst sampling and similar for the audio options (See the User Manual for details). Installation ============ To install Sound Probe simply double-click on the `Installer' icon and follow the instructions, this will install SoundProbe for you. Settings File ============= The Sound Probe settings file can easily be edited via the WB 'ed' command. All the paths which Sound Probe uses can be set by changing the paths text. The settings file is in the `Settings' drawer, it is called `SPDefault.settings' e.g - AUDIO_PATH=SP16:Audio/ could be changed to... AUDIO_PATH=LIBS:Audio/ if you wish to keep the Sound Probe libraries in your LIBS: drawer. If Sound Probe can not find a default settings file, it will assume that all the files it needs are contained within the same drawer that the main editor is located in, it will then create an assign called 'SP16:' to this location when it is executed. If you wish, you can assign 'SP16:' yourself, forcing Sound Probe to use this instead. If SoundProbe fails to find any of its main libraries, it will not be able to run, these are the one contained in the "Libs/" drawer. Button Graphics =============== The buttons which Sound Probe uses for the Tools window can be changed simply using any IFF-ILBM graphics editor which allows you to save out a brush. The size of the buttons is defined by the size of the brush, take a look at the default buttons. You can create a drawer with your own button images, then simply set the buttons path to where they are located and Sound Probe will load the new images next time it is executed. Sound Player ============ The Sound Player has been set up to operate from an assign to the drawer where SoundProbe is, and an added assign to the sound probe `Libs' drawer. If you have the files in a different place, edit the tooltypes of the SoundPlayer icon. Icons ===== For people with the "Magic Workbench" there are several icons contained in the icons drawer. Simply rename these and copy them over the original icon. The installer will handle all this for you. Known Bugs ========== None known at this present time. Changes ======= 07.07.97 - The Effects menu has had the echo effects moved into a sub menu, two new echo effects have been added: AreaEcho, SurroundEcho. - Three new display libraries have been added: 3DFrequencyGraph, 2DFrequencyGraph, QuickGraph. - Three new Sampling Monitors have been added: 3DSpectrumAnalyser, 2DSpectrumAnalyser, HIFISpeccyAnalyser - Sampling monitor `SpectrumAnalyser' has been improved to show 64 frequency bands, and uses an improved 256 point FFT. 09.07.97 - Resample now has an extra option to resample just the selected area, or if this is disabled, then it will resample the whole sample. 10.07.97 - The pitch routines have been altered from using a rate to using a scaling percentage. Change Pitch, Chorus, Modulate and Pitch Bend now use a range of 1-400% instead of resample rates. - Default Effects menus have been extended with a Settings menu. This allows you to snapshot the current windows position and size, or unsnapshot it so it always centres it. 11.07.97 - NoiseGate, Compressor and DeCrackle rewritten, much improved performance and results. 13.07.97 - Resonance effect added, shows up in the FX List. 18.07.97 - AHI Audio library added. Allows you to use the AHI.device to play through. Has only been tested with the Paula support. AHI is available as PD. 19.07.97 - Added new monitor meter "LightOrgan" based on the lightorgan in DeliTracker. Displays the input level based on a colour change of a box. - Meter update speeds have been improved, updating now uses the sampling timer, and no longer waits for a frame update. This could cause sync problems and sometimes some flicker, but this could also happen with frame waits, so it makes little difference, except now it updates every 50th of a second, and not when the frame and sampling event happen in sync! 21.07.97 - Added menus to monitoring meters. Now supports the following menu options: Project -> About ----- Quit Settings -> Snapshot Window Unsnapshow Window Snapshot will now save the current window position and size for your meter, so the next time you use it, it'll appear in the same place and size. If you have meters open when you save the default settings, the snapshot will be ignored and the location and size at saving will be used, this means that you can still leave the meters open at quit time, and they'll reload as you left time. 23.07.97 - Amiga14Bit audio library added. 24.07.97 - Reverb has an extra option to turn off the flange, reducing the number of calculations it makes. Also had some general improvements. New decay slope type "Random" added. Diffusion algorithm improved, but speed is now slower due to more calculation. 25.07.97 - Three new effects added: LowPassBoost, HighPassBoost, BandPassBoost. These can be accessed via the FxList as with any further effects. 28.07.97 - Fixed small bug in layerhook, caused graphics errors on KickStart3.1. - Added new effect: "FastReverb" (access through FxList). Uses less computation, and is only linear so sounds less "natural". It's much better for Real-Time as the full Reverb is pretty slow! 29.07.97 - Improved speed of "HIFISpeccyAnalyser", update now uses tables for dB calculations and not floating point calcs. - Fixed small bug in sampling monitoring, wasn't telling the meter the sampling rate, causing probs with Frequency meters. - Improved 2DFrequencyGraph/2DSpectrumAnalyser to use tables for dB calculations, now slightly faster. 30.07.97 - Extended sampler library functions to give more flexible sampling support. 31.07.97 - AHI sampler support added. Doesn't support Real-Time FX, and stopping sampling early will only keep the last saved block (see the Sampler Info). This is a test of AHI support so shouldn't be taken too seriously. The sampler/audio support is not full or perfect, and may not fully work, or even work at all. If AHI developes further I may add full (true) AHI support. - Removed rate mapping, sampling rates are no longer mapped onto the Amiga clock frequency, this allows expansion to samplers which can support other frequencies, use the rate requester "MapRate" to get the correct Amiga rate. - Improved colour scheme of 2D/3D FFT displays, shows up details much clearer, especially 2D graphs. 01.08.97 - Added extra palette functions: Copy,Swap,Mix,Spread. - Added new monitor meter: Monoscope. Based around the DeliTracker monoscope idea. 03.08.97 - Added two new monitor meters: 3DSurfaceFFT - Displays the frequencies as a 3D "Surface" map. ColourMultiscope - Displays faded previous displays. - Added new display graph: 3DFFTSurfaceGraph. Sames as the monitor meter. 20.08.97 - Fixed bug in multi-file load, at startup. - Fixed bug in 'cancel' load. - Added Multi-File load requester, you can now select multiple files. Load will load first into current project and then create new projects for each extra file. Open will create a new project and then start loading. 16.10.97 - Fixed small bug in 8SVX saver, could have caused crashing. - Changed Resample window, now shows the time stretch options more clearly as Amiga Format said they didn't exist! 18.10.97 - Fixed stereo<->mono for 8 bit interleaved file storage. 20.10.97 - Improved stereo->mono mix routine and general mix. 01.11.97 - Converted some code for CU Amiga Demo. Finally ======= To obtain SoundProbe contact HiSoft at: North America Rest of world Oregon Research HiSoft 16200 SW Pacific Highway The Old School Suite 162 Greenfield Tigard Bedford OR 97223 MK45 5DE U.S.A. U.K. Phone: +1 503 620 4919 +44 (0)1525 718181 FAX: +1 503 624 2940 +44 (0)1525 713716 Email: orres@teleport.com hisoft@cix.compulink.co.uk