Turnbull China Bikeride/Turnbull China Bikeride - Disc 2.iso/STUTTGART/FROMUTS/DSEDIT/!DSEdit/!Help

Text File | 1991-06-23 | 17KB | 464 lines

        Help for !DSEdit v1.03 by Jason Williams
        ========================================

  ****************************************************
  *                                                  *
  *     This version of !DSEdit is PUBLIC DOMAIN     *
  *      © Copyright '89,'90,'91 Jason Williams      *
  *                                                  *
  ****************************************************

     DSEdit is a raw-digitised-sound editor. It can be
 used to edit/play samples from the Armadillo range of
 sound samplers as well as EMR's SoundSynth samples
 (Note that loading a soundsynth sample converts it to
 DSEdit raw sample format, so it will no longer be
 compatible with soundsynth unless loaded as a raw
 sample). Up to 16 samples can be edited at one time.

     To load a sample, double-click the sample's file
 icon in a directory viewer, or drag the icon to the
 DSEdit iconbar icon.

     A window will appear containing a graphical
 representation of the sample, and some other icons.

     The main sample display. This shows the sample.
 Initially it is all inverted, indicating that the
 entire sample is selected. You can select any small
 portion of the sample by dragging across the display.
 The selected portion is acted on by most of the
 editing options, so it is important to select the area
 you are interested in before you use editing options.
 (Note that dragging with the Select button will select
 a new area of the sample, while dragging with the
 Adjust button will adjust one end of the selected area)

 [To vaguely explain the picture of the sample:
 A DSEdit raw sample is a sequence of bytes
 representing sampled values. These are actually
 'amplitude' or 'speaker deflection' values for
 playback. A typical sound sample will be at 22kHz,
 which means that 22,000 bytes are 'played' through the
 speaker every second. The value of each byte is in
 the range 0 to 255, whith a value of 128 meaning
 silence (no speaker deflection), and values 0..127
 represent negative deflection (volume/amplitude) and
 values 129..255 representing positive deflection
 (volume/amplitude). The displayed picture shows the
 values of bytes across the entire sample- silence
 would be a line across the centre of the display. The
 higher the 'peaks' on this display, the louder the
 sound is when played. If any bytes of the sound
 (through amplification, for example) go outside the
 range 0..255 (i.e. move off the top or bottom of the
 picture) distortion and static-like sounds may
 result.]


     The purpose and usage of the icons across the top
 of the editor window is as follows (from left to
 right):

 * Left arrow
   This allows you to scroll the display 1/4 of a
   screenful to the left (When you have zoomed in on the
   sample, see below)

 * Speaker
   This will play the selected portion of the sound
   sample at the current speed and volume settings.

 * Zoom
   Clicking Select on this button increases the zoom
   factor. Clicking Adjust decreases it. The icon changes
   to display the number of bytes displayed within the
   area shown in the window. Once you have zoomed in,
   you can scroll the displayed area using the left
   and right arrow icons.

 * Right Arrow
   To scroll right.

 * Selection display
   This text line shows how many bytes of the file are
   in the current selection.
   (e.g. "Selection 6420 of 32984 bytes")

 * Speed keyboard
   This 'piano keyboard' display allows you to alter
   the speed at which the sample is played. This has
   the effect of changing the pitch of the sound.
   Clicking near the left end will give a very low
   note, while towards the right the note becomes
   higher. Marked in red on this display are the
   approximate positions that give playback speeds of
   7, 12.5, and 22kHz, the most common sample speeds.
   Clicking on the keyboard will alter the playback
   speed, and then play back the entire sample at the
   new speed. When clicked, this changes the speed, and
   then plays back the selected area of the sample.

     Clicking Menu anywhere inside a DSEdit editor window
 will bring up the main menu with the following
 options:

 Play Sound
 ==========
 This plays the entire sound at the current speed and
 volume.

 Try Sound
 =========
 This is for people like me who like to have a quick
 and simple way of trying out new sounds- it amplifies
 the sound as much as possible without corrupting it,
 and then plays it.

 Save ⇨
 ======
 Following the arrow on this option leads to a
 standard Save box. This will save the entire sample.

 Select all
 ==========
 This selects the entire sound.

 Selection ⇨
 ===========
 This leads to a submenu which allows you to:
 * Save the selected area only.
 * Play the selected area only.
 * Delete the selected area.

 Edit ⇨
 ======
 This gives the main suite of editing functions. Four
 of the functions are currently greyed-out, as although
 they exist within DSEdit, the interface has not yet
 been connected up to them!

 * Ramp Up will modify the amplitude (volume) of the
   sample across the area that is selected. This
   alters the volume from left to right across the
   selected area from 0 to full volume, acheiving a
   'fade in' effect.

 * Ramp down is the opposite of Ramp Up. It causes a
   'Fade out' effect.

 * Amplify ⇨ Leads to a writeable menu. Type in the
   percentage by which you wish to amplify the sample.
   Examples:
   50 (50%) will halve the volume, making the sound quieter.
   100 (100%) will leave the volume exactly as it is!
   200 (200%) will double the volume, making the sound
   much louder.
   Note that if over-amplification occurs (When bytes
   start to 'wrap' or have to be clipped, i.e. the
   values are amplified outside the range 0..255),
   distortion and crackle may result. The only way to
   avoid this is to amplify by a smaller value, or to
   amplify quieter parts of the sound independantly of
   louder parts.

 * Max Amplify is very similar to Amplify, but DSEdit
   works out the best value to amplify by to get the
   maximum possible amplification before the sound is
   corrupted. (essentially, it expands the sound's byte
   values to fill the full 0..255 range, thus maximising
   the amplitude)

 * Move Centre ⇨ Leads to a writeable menu. Type in the
   new byte-value for the 'centre' of the sound (the
   "silence" level). The selected area of the sample
   will be moved 'up' or 'down' (by adding a constant)
   to shift the byte-value entered up/down to 128
   (normal silence value).This is very similar to the
   'Add Const' option, i.e. a value of 160 in this
   option is identical to a value of (128-160=) -32.
   This is used to correct badly-sampled sounds.

 * Auto Centre is similar to move centre, above, but
   DSEdit moves the centre of the sound to the centre
   byte value in the range used by the sound (i.e. it
   finds the range of values used by the sound, and
   places the centre half-way between the minimum and
   maximum values). This is a quick-and easy way of
   moving the centre close to where it should be.

 * Limit up ⇨
 * Limit down ⇨
   These options are very similar. Enter a byte-value
   limit into the writeable menu. Any values in the
   selected area of the sound that are greater than (for
   limit up) or smaller than (for limit down) this value
   will be truncated to this value.
   This can be used to add an unclear-static-y effect
   (if you want one!), but can also sometimes be used to
   'tidy away' spurious (noise) values when these
   functions are applied to very small selected regions
   (Use the zoom).

 * Squeeze ⇨
   This allows you to alter the size/length/playback
   time of the sample. Enter a percentage between 1% and
   999% in the writeable menu box. A value of 1%-99%
   will decrease the length (in bytes, and hence the
   playback time, and cause the frequency to rise), e.g.
    A value of 50% will halve the sample size (e.g. 24kB
    sample will become 12kB), and double the frequency
    (pitch). The sample should now be played at half the
    sample-rate (i.e. a 22kHz sample now should be
    played at 12kHz).
   A value of 100% has no effect.
   Values greater than 100% will increase the length of
   the sample, hence increasing the playback time and
   decreasing the frequency (pitch). Play the sample at
   a higher playback-rate to correct the pitch. Note
   that this option could easily cause DSEdit to crash,
   as it increases the sample size (e.g. 200% DOUBLES
   the sample size)
   Both these options take a while (They process about
   1kB every second). Note also that the quality of a
   sample that has been processed in this way will be
   adversely affected. Note also that performing squeeze
   twice with values of (for example) 50% and 200% will
   return the sound to it's original length and speed,
   but will DEGRADE the quality of the sample
   considerably (As half the original information is
   completely lost)

 * Make silence ⇨ leads to a writeable menu. Enter the
   number of bytes worth of silence you wish to insert
   at this point in the sample. Look at the main
   window display of the sound length as a guide to
   how many bytes will be needed to get the right
   length of play-time inserted.


 Special FX ⇨
 ============
 This submenu offers the special effect and conversion
 options. They are:

 * Add const ⇨ Adds a constant value to each byte of
   sound data in the selected region. See later
   ("Clipping" option) for further information
   relating to this option. Enter the constant value
   (0..255) in the writeable menu.
   Remember that adding too large a number may 'shift'
   the sample up or down so that clipping/wrapping
   occurs, which will degrade the playback quality.

 * Eor const ⇨ Exclusive-Ors a constant value with
   each byte of sound data in the selected region.
   This is most useful for converting some sounds
   (e.g. Amiga formats), by EORing with a value of
   128. Enter a value (0..255) in the writeable menu.

 * Reverse will reverse the selected region of the
   sample. This results in it playing backwards.

 * Echo ⇨ adds an echo to the sample. Enter the delay
   (in bytes) at which each echo occurs into the
   writeable menu.

 * Flange Echo ⇨ adds a Flange Echo to the sample.
   Enter the delay (in bytes) at which each echo
   occurs into the writeable menu.


 Options ⇨
 =========
 This submenu offers four extra 'preference' options:

 * Set speed ⇨ Enter a byte value for playback speed
   into the writeable menu. This has been superceded
   by the keyboard in the editor window, though it can
   still be used to set the speed. The speed displayed
   on this menu is also altered by clicking on the
   keyboard.

 * Set volume ⇨ This sets the volume at which the
   sample is played. Enter a number between 0 (quiet)
   and 15 (loud) into the writeable menu.

 * Clipping. This option controls what happens to the
   bytes of sound data when they are modified (By Add
   const, Eor const, Amplify, merging sounds, etc.)
   When clipping is ticked, then any values that
   become larger than 255 are 'clipped' to a value of
   255, and any going below zero become zero. With
   clipping off, values 'wrap' around (MOD 256), so a
   value of 256 will become 0, 257 will become 2, ...
   -1 will become 255, -2 will become 254,... and so
   on.

 * Lines alters the way in which samples are displayed
   in the main window- With lines ticked, lines are
   drawn between values, with it off, dots are placed
   at each value. Experiment and see.

 * Filetype. This tells DSEdit to set the filetype of
   any file you load to 'RawSound' (&ED0). It is very
   useful for setting the filetype of downloaded files
   (which normally appear as 'data' files) when
   loading them into DSEdit for the first time.
   However, most of the time you are unlikely to want
   this turned on, as DSEdit will do this to ANY file
   that you attempt to load, as it has no way of
   knowing whether the file really is/isn't a sample!

 These options are not saved and will be reset each
 time you run !DSEdit.


 Convert ⇨
 =========
 This submenu offers options for converting foreign file
 formats (From Macintosh, Atari ST, and Amiga computers
 generally, but also from other Arc sound programs)

 * Logarithmic
   This converts logarithmic sounds to DSEdit's RAW
   format. Many relocatable-module sounds on the Arc
   are stored in this format.

 * Bit signed
   This converts 'Bit signed' sounds to DSEdit's RAW
   format. If a sound doesn't work, then try this one on
   it!

 * Amiga
   This converts "Amiga" format sounds by EORing each
   byte with 128 (inverts the sign bit).
     ** This will also work with Soundsynth and **
     ** Amiga SoundTracker files.               **

 * Sun
   This converts a SUN SparcStation format sound.



 Extra functions
 ===============

     DSEdit has several other extra functions that
 aren't immediately obvious:

 Merging sounds:
 ===============
 To merge two sounds together, load the first sound
 into DSEdit, then drag the file icon of the second
 sound into the edit window of the first sound. A
 dialogue window will appear with the following
 options:

 * Insert at selection start
   This will load the second sample, and insert it
   into the first sample at the point where the
   selected area STARTS (i.e. the LEFT end of the
   inverted area). It inserts the ENTIRE sample, and
   does not take any notice of the end of the selected
   area.

 * Overwrite from sel. start
   This loads the second sample, and *overwrites* the
   first sample, starting from the start of the
   selected area. NOTE that this carries on until the
   second sample runs out, and is not limited in any
   way by the length of the selected area.

 * Add sounds together
   This takes each byte in turn from both samples and
   mixes them by ADDing the two bytes.
   (Clipping/wrapping occurs depending on whether the
   "clipping" option is ticked in the Options
   submenu). This usually results in a louder sound, and
   can result in distortion. In such cases, either
   quieten one or both sounds before addition (using
   amplify of 0 to 99%), or by using the Average
   option (see below). Note that this only affects the
   sample in the selected area, adding in the second
   sound from the start of the selected area until the
   end of the selected area is reached, EVEN if the
   second sample is longer than that.

 * Average sounds together
   This is the same as Add, above, except the bytes
   are averaged instead of added. This stops the sound
   having to be clipped (as happens in Adding), which
   improves the end-product quality. This results in a
   quieter sound.

     Click on the radio-button of the method of your
 choice, and then click "OK", or click "CANCEL" to
 abort the merge.


 Keyboard shortcuts
 ==================
 After you have clicked in any editor window, it's
 title-bar will turn cream (it becomes the input
 focus). Now, you can use the following keys to
 duplicate some of the menu functions:

   SPACE       will play the selection
   RETURN      will play the entire sound
   DELETE or ⇦ will delete the selected part of the
               sound
   Page up     will increase the volume of the sound
               (=Amplify by 150%)
   Page down   will decrease the volume
               (=Amplify by 75%)
   Copy        will select the entire sound

 ------------------------------------------------------

 Please note: This program is not guaranteed to work as
 expected. In fact, I can practically guarantee that it
 will crash (locking up the computer entirely) at some
 time! Usually, this only happens when insufficient
 memory is available in the RMA for an operation to be
 carried out, so I suggest you check the free memory
 before trying to load big sound files!
 This tends to happen when "Squeeze"ing a sound by
 values larger than 100%, when the size of the sample
 increases quite considerably.
 I accept no responsibility for any loss or annoyment
 caused by any crash or inadequacy of DSEdit.

 Note also that because sounds are loaded into the RMA
 area, if you run any applications or load any modules
 while any sounds are loaded, the RMA space left when
 the sound windows are closed may not be recoverable...
 in other words, your RMA will gradually fill with
 empty bits of memory that can't be reclaimed! This
 will eventually cause the system to grind to a halt.
 The only way to fix this at present is to CTRL-Break
 (Reset the system), so I advise that to prevent this
 becoming necessary, you only run other apps when
 there are no sound windows open.


And now for something completely different...
=============================================

If you have any suggestions, bug reports (accepted by
the dozen only, due to high infestation levels!), or
whatevers, or would like a copy of the latest version
of anything I have written, or would like to donate a
sound sampler board, hard drive, or lots of money
towards the further development of DSEdit, then you
can contact me at:

  Jason Williams,       |        or by email:
  R.D.2, Manuel Road,   |
  Silverdale,           |    [e-mail]
  North Auckland,       |
  NEW ZEALAND.          |

  "Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!"
                           -Quest for the Holy Grail