2. Soundprobe Environment

Soundprobe environment consists of the workspace, an area around the workspace into which you can place toolbars, the control bar located along the bottom of the main window, plus the menus of course.

Toolbars

Soundprobe has a variety of preset toolbars which provide you with quick access to all of the main functions. You can open all the toolbars and arrange them around the workspace, or you can open just the toolbars you use the most.

To get quick help on a toolbar icon:

Hover over the icon for a few seconds to get a tooltip showing the name of the icon, while hovering over the icon, a description of the function appears in the status bar at the bottom of the main window.

To get detailed help on a toolbar icon:

Hover over the icon and press F1.

To open/close a toolbar:

Select View > Toolbars.
Select/deselect the toolbar from the menu.

Right-click over any toolbar to show the pop-up menu.
Select/deselect the toolbar from the menu.

To undock a toolbar from the toolbar area:

There is a small bar located on the left side of each toolbar; drag this to move the toolbar. Drop the toolbar in the workspace to undock the toolbar - i.e. turn it into a floating tools palette. (You may also drag any part of a toolbar which isn't part of a button, e.g. the separator between buttons.)

To dock a floating tools palette in a toolbar area:

Drag-and-drop the palette into a toolbar area.

To prevent a toolbar from docking:

Hold down CTRL while moving the toolbar.

NOTE: some toolbars will dock only in the top toolbar area. To check if a toolbar will dock at the sides, move it to where you want to dock it - if the toolbar can be docked here, the highlighted area will change shape to fit vertically down the sides of the window.

Toolbar reference

Standard	Selections

Play	Frequency

Zoom	Regions

Direct FX	Special FX

Manual Editing	Processing

Restoration	Enhancements

The control bar

A special bar is located at the bottom of the main Soundprobe window. This is the control bar. From here you can numerically enter the currently viewed area of sound and the selected area of the sound. It also gives you direct access to the frequency editing option plus enables you to numerically enter the currently selected frequency area. Located on the control bar are the most commonly used play buttons, zoom and selection buttons. There is also a VU meter for monitoring the sound level of either the sound output from Soundprobe, or the Windows input. In the centre of the control bar is the time at which the play cursor is currently located.

To enable/disable the control bar

Select View > Toolbars.
Select/deselect Control Bar.

Right-click over any toolbar to display the pop-up menu.
Select/deselect Control Bar.

The control bar VU meter

The VU meter is a special area of the control bar. You may change its appearance and the way it responds to sound, or you may hide it if its activity is distracting you. Hiding the control bar VU meter will also give more memory and CPU time to other parts of the program.

To disable the control bar VU meter:

In the control bar, right-click over the VU meter to display the pop-up menu.
Deselect the Enable option.

To enable the control bar VU meter:

In the control bar, right-click over the area where the VU meter is normally displayed (under the play cursor time) to display the pop-up menu.
Select the Enable option.

To change the properties of the control bar VU meter:

Right-click over the control bar VU meter to display the pop-up menu.
Select the Properties option.
The VU Meter Properties dialog is described elsewhere in this help file.

To change the control bar VU meter between sound output/input:

Right-click over the control bar VU meter to display the pop-up menu.
Select the the Output or Input option.

Documents

Soundprobe uses a multiple-document interface (MDI). This enables you to open many files at the same time, all within the same environment, and to view them one at a time, or many at once. In the case of Soundprobe, a document is a sound and all its information (i.e. rate , author, etc.), plus a list of markers, regions and the loop playlist.

To open the File Properties dialog:

Click on the document information located at the top right of the document's view window. You may edit the information contained in the Properties panel at any time. This information is saved with the document, no matter which sound type (file format) you select in the Save dialog.

Views

Each open document has at least one view that enables you to see the sound stored in the document. For each view, Soundprobe opens a window within the main application window. The view is the area of the sound you wish to be displayed within its own window.

Soundprobe enables you to open multiple views, all associated with the same document. This enables you to see different areas of a sound at the same time and to easily copy and paste between them. Each view can have its own selection enabling you to make multiple selections and view different areas of the same sound.

Whenever you click on a view window you activate that view and the view's document; while this view is active its document will be used by effects to set the Apply To document each time you enter an effects dialog. If there is a selection made in the active view this is the selection that will be used for all editing while that view is active.

You can click on other non-view windows without changing the active document and view.

The view's title bar displays the name of the document; this will always be the same as the document's filename. Until a new document is saved for the first time its name will be ôUntitledö.

After you modify a document an asterisk will be displayed after the document name to indicate that the document has been changed but not yet saved, for example ômysound.aiff*ö.

Multiple views are indicated in the title bar by a colon after the document name, for example ômysound.aiff*:2ö means that this is the second view associated with ômysound.aiffö and that changes have been made since the last save.

To quickly move around the sound with the viewbar:

Click anywhere within the viewbar (top left of the document view). If the viewbar is not visible it means it is currently set to be hidden; select View > Show > Viewbar to display it.

To scroll the view:

Drag the scroll bar at the foot of the view window.

Click the scroll bar buttons to the left and right of the scroll bar to move the view of the sound by an eighth of a page each click.

Click on either side of the scroll bar.

To quickly zoom in and out:

Click on the zoom buttons located at bottom left and bottom right of the view window.

To open a new view:

Select Window > New Window to open a new view window.
NOTE: Do not confuse the Window menu with the View menu. The Window menu contains commands which enable you to open and manipulate the display of view windows, whereas the View menu contains command which enable you to change aspects of the currently selected view, such as what kind of graph to display for example.

To quickly arrange all open views:

Select the Window menu; from here you can select Cascade, Tile, Tile Horizontally and Tile Vertically.

To close a view:

Activate the view you wish to close and select Window > Close.

Click the view's close icon.

To close all view windows:

Select Window > Close All. (Closing all views will close all open documents.)

To close all views of one document:

Select File > Close.