It could be that the file has the wrong "type", especially if it has been downloaded or copied from a non-Mac machine. See the Open command to find out how to solve this.
Try closing any other applications which might be using the sound hardware.
Check whether other programs can play the Sound file in question.
The volume slider (see Screen Layout) should of course not be on zero.
Check the Stereo Mix dialog, and make sure it is not set "out of phase".
Does the waveform profile appear properly in the upper pane (look at the Screen Layout for comparison)?
Sometimes soundcard drivers have bugs in. So another thing to try is, search the internet to find the website of the soundcard manufacturer to see if a driver update is available for your soundcard. This is worth doing even if your soundcard plays ok with other applications. Different applications use different ways of keeping a sound card supplied with data so it is perfectly possible for a soundcard driver bug to prevent one application from playing properly, while causing no problem for a different application.
By far the commonest problem is that you must select the appropriate source to record from. If the VU meter in the "Record to File" dialog is not jumping up and down with the music then probably the recording input selection is not set correctly. See Record to File help for more information about how to fix this.
Make sure you are recording to a disk which has sufficient space (not a floppy).
Also, see the comments about updating soundcard drivers, just above.
Send email to Seventh String Software andy@seventhstring.demon.co.uk and describe the problem as accurately as possible.
Remember to include the following information :
Spectrum computation
The "Computing spectrum" progress box should take much less than a second (in fact, you wouldn't normally see it at all). If it is much slower than this then probably you have an old machine. There's not much you can do except get a faster machine.
Waveform display glitches
Transcribe! does its best to keep playback going without interruptions : this can mean (especially in scroll mode) that gaps may appear in the waveform display and auto scrolling may be delayed when Transcribe! is working hard. Don't worry : Transcribe! will fill in the gaps as soon as it has a moment. Switch off scroll mode if it bothers you.
The "Pre-computing audio data" dialog
This dialog pops up during playback if Transcribe! is unable to read/decode/process audio data as fast as it needs for playing. Read about the Audio source buffer (Preferences) for solutions to this.
Playback glitches
There are two main causes for playback glitches (brief silent gaps interrupting playback).
1. Other applications are hogging the system. Solutions :
2. Your computer isn't fast enough to keep up with the sample data. In this case Transcribe! will respond sluggishly to commands given while playing back. Changing the size of the playback buffer won't help with this. Solutions :
Return to Contents page This resource fork intentionally left blank ˇˇ