The `Sound' Control panel only allows you to record ten seconds of sound. If you own `HyperCard' and have a lot of RAM you can better that, but it is difficult to get more than say five minutes of recording (at 22kHz that counts up to 300 times 22000 bytes or approximately 6.6 Megabyte).
This is a pity and there is an easy way around it since the new Sound Manager allows recording to and playback from disk via two fairly simple operating system calls. Therefore I wrote two little programs which allow you to fill up your entire hard disk with a single sound and to play it back without interruptions.
The programs are called SFRecord and SFPlay (short for `Standard File Record' and `Standard File Play' after the operating system package used to get the name of a file from the user, there once where programs called `Record' and `Play' to do the same thing without asking for a filename).
Use SFRecord to record a sound to disk. The program first asks for the name and location of the sound file to be created. In this box you can also select a recording quality. Experiment to get the knack for the trade-offs between quality and size.
After this the standard `Recorder' buttons are shown which allow you to record a sound.
Use SFPlay to play back a recorded sound from disk. The program asks for a sound file to play. In this box you can specify that you want to repeat the sound forever. The program can allways be quit by selecting `Quit' in the file menu.
Alternatively you can double-click a file in the Finder. It will then be repeated forever (This is great for playing your favourite song and will also be done when a sound file is made a `startup item').
Error Handling
This is very minimal. If an error occurs you will hear a beep. Possible errors are:
* User selects `Cancel' in Standard File.
* Not enough processor speed to fulfill that request (compression takes time, you know)
* Not enough disk speed to fulfill that request (recording at 22kHz requires the ability to write 22Kbyte of data per second).
* No sound input device selected/available [Yes, you do NEED a microphone connected to your Mac to be able to record sounds :-) ].
Known Bugs:
SFPlay does not always release its sound channel properly, resulting in loss of sound by other programs.
File format
There is little to say about this. Apple claims it to be according to the `AIFF' (Audio Interchange File Format) standard. I simply ask the Mac to write a sound file and to play back a sound file and it works.
Disclaimer:
These programs are free and worth every penny of it. Use them if you like, but do not trust them not to crash your Macintosh.
