BarbaBatch runs on Apple Macintosh platforms only.
BarbaBatch will run on any 68 K Mac with an FPU (Floating Point Unit) installed.
To check whether your Mac has one installed, please refer to your technical reference manual, consult your Mac dealer, or launch the BarbaBatch Demo.
Also BarbaBatch is PowerPC Native, so it will run accelerated on PowerPC's.
Digidesign hardware
Digidesign soundcards may be used to increase the processing speed on 680x0 Mac's.
(BarbaBatch doesn't use Digidesign soundcards on Powermac's, but uses the internal RISC processor instead)
The following Digidesign hardware may be used:
SoundTools I, II
AudioMedia I, II,LC
ProTools II
Digidesign software
In order to use Digidesign hardware, you need the DigiSystem INIT that came with your hardware.
PowerPC
BarbaBatch is accelerated for PowerMac.
Digidesign hardware on PowerMac's is not supported, since the powermacs RISC processor is fast enough by itself
Disk space
A lot of harddisk space is recommended since digital audio takes up a lot of space.
For safety reasons you are not able to replace soundfiles with converted soundfiles.
When converting samplerate and gain at the same time without using Digidesign hardware, temporary files are created on the harddisk. All this adds up if you convert large soundfiles.
System Software
BarbaBatch runs on Macintosh System Software 7.1 or later.
SoftFPU
The software FPU emulator SoftFPU may be used for Macintoshes without a floating point processor, allthough this is not recommended. It will make BarbaBatch run very slow in processes like normalising and samplerate conversion, when no DigiDesign hardware is used to aid in the calculation.
An introductory window will appear while BarbaBatch starts up.
After 7 seconds or after clicking in it, it is replaced by the main window of BarbaBatch.
In the top row there are four large buttons that cover four steps.
From left to right these buttons mean:
1 Selecting the files and folders you want to convert
2 Selecting the desired conversion(s)
3 Selecting a destination where the converted soundfiles will be stored
4 Starting the conversion process.
We will now take a look at the functionality behind these four buttons.
1. The Input button
Selecting the files and folders you want to convert
When you press the 'Input' button, the Input dialog appears.
The Input dialog consists of a scrolling list of all your input files and folders, an Add button, a Remove button and a Remove All button.
When you press the 'Add' button, the 'Add file or folder' dialog appears. You can navigate to the files and folders you want to convert and press the 'Add' button every time you want to add one to the list. Added items appear immediately in the input list of the Input dialog.
The input batch, as we call it, can consist of any file type known to BarbaBatch at the same time.
BarbaBatch can convert from and to any of the following formats:
Sound Designer I - Digidesigns first, one channel file format
Sound Designer II - current Digidesign file format
AIFF - Audio Interchange File Format (it also reads Sonic Solutions AIFF Files)
WAV - Microsoft Windows standard sound file format (.WAV)
VOC - standard 8 bit Creative Voice sound file format mostly used for MS-DOS (.VOC)
VOC16bits - extended VOC file for 16 bits and high sample rates (SoundBlasterPro)
NeXT/SUN.snd - The linear PCM version of the native NeXT and SUN audio format
NeXT/SUN.au - The 8 bit µ-law version of the native NeXT and SUN audio format
Amiga IFF/8SVX - A popular Commodore Amiga sound file format
AVR - originally an Atari format
On top of that BarbaBatch can convert to QuickTime movies' sound file format.
When a sound file is highlighted in the 'Add file or folder' dialog, you can view its properties (file type, sample rate, word length and file length) in the text below.
When a folder is highlighted in the 'Add file or folder' dialog, you can press the Examine button to view the contents of the folder. (All its enclosed folders are also examined). BarbaBatch then shows a list similar to the following:
Folder consists of:
112 AIFF Files
80 Sounddesigner II Files
43 NeXT/Sun mulaw (.au) files
20 files of unknown type.
If there are more than four different file types in the folder BarbaBatch shows something like:
Folder consists of:
620 files of various types.
When you have added all the files and folders you want to convert, press the 'Done' button.
You return to the main dialog. Here you can remove an item from your input list by selecting that item and pressing the Remove button. You can also remove all items pressing the 'Remove All' button.
There is another way to build your input batch: go to the finder and simply drag the items to the BarbaBatch application icon. When the BarbaBatch icon highlights drop them.
When you are satisfied with your input list, it is time for step two.
2. The Conversion button
Building and selecting conversions
When you press the 'Conversion' button, a scrollable list of conversions you have already built appears. When you never defined a conversion before, the list is empty.
Suppose you want to convert the input batch to the following format:
WAV files,
8 bits,
22050 Hz sampling rate,
normalised to a ceiling of -2 dB.
You have to build a conversion that meets these requirements. Push the New button in the conversion dialog. A dialog called 'Define New Conversion' appears.
In the name field you enter the name of a conversion. Call it 'WAV,22050 Hz,8 bits'.
This name will appear in the conversion list when you are finished building the conversion.
Select all the desired properties: Wave, 22050, 8bits, -2db and leave the rest of the check boxes open.
Your window should look like this:
The fields of the 'Define New Conversion' dialog
When you are done editing your conversion, press the 'Add' button to add it to the list.
The 'Define New Conversion' dialog disappears and you return to the conversion dialog.
BarbaBatch automatically 'checks' the conversion you have just created in order to actually perform it when you eventually run the process. You can toggle a check on or off by clicking in front of the conversion name in the conversion list. When you check multiple conversions, BarbaBatch will perform them one after the other in one pass.
If you have the proper Digidesign hardware (see System Requirements) you can use it to speed up the sample rate conversion and normalising process considerably. Select the board you want to use in the rightmost popup in the conversion list window.
This is not possible in the native PPC version since the PPC 's risc processor is quite fast on its own.
Even if you do have a Digidesign card, you can choose to run BarbaBatch in the background without using the card. In this way, you will be able to use your Digidesign hardware for editing, playing and recording in the foreground, while BarbaBatch is processing in the background. Do this by selecting the option Don't use a card in the popup of the conversion dialog.
It is very important to realise that you do not have to check every conversion parameter. When you do not check a parameter,it will be copied from the inputfile.
You can for instance choose not to alter the file type, word length etc. while normalising the complete input batch. The output files will have all the original properties of the input files except for their gains.
Another important thing to realise is that there can be incompatibilities between your input files and your conversion definition.
For example, suppose you choose not to alter the file type of your input files by not checking the 'convert file type to…' option, but you have checked 'change sample rate to 48000 Hz'. Obviously when a VOC file, having a maximum sample rate of 20000 Hz, comes in at the input it cannot be converted, because BarbaBatch will atempt to create a 48kHz VOC. When such an incompatibility occurs, the file will not be converted and the event will be reported in the log discussed hereafter.
2.1 The fields of the 'Define New Conversion' dialog
Since this is a 'Quick Tour' the various fields in the 'Define New Conversion' dialog will only be discussed very briefly.
The fields of the 'Define New Conversion' dialog
Convert file type to ...
Here you select the file type of your output files. The possibilities are listed in the section explaining the Input button.
Convert sample rate to…
Here you select the sample rate of your output files. Sample rates must be lower than 100 kHz.
If no card available, use quality…
If there is no Digidesign hardware available to assist in the sample rate conversion process, or you don't want to use it, the Mac will have to do it on its own. There are two quality (speed) choices for this scenario: Linear (fast) and Polyphase (slower).
If you select a Digidesign card in the popup menu of the conversion dialog, this field is ignored, and the Polyphase method will be chosen.
Convert number of bits to…
Here you can select the word length of your output files. Choices are 16 bits and 8 bits.
Change maximum level to…
If you check this option, your output files will individually be normalised to the ceiling that you enter.
Change # of channels
When checked, the input files' channels will be converted to the output files' channels using the scheme selected in the associated popup dialog.
This setting has no effect on nput files with more than two channels, they will be converted automatically to output files with the same amount of channels.
Process regions by…
Sounddesigner II files and Wave files can contain regions: named selections of audio.
The choices here are:
Extract : every region from every input file will be converted to a separate file,
bearing the name of the original region. These regions will be stored in a folder
bearing the name of the 'parent file'.
Of course other conversion parameters will also affect the extracted audio files.
Compact : the audio in the input files that is not enclosed by regions is not converted,
hence, your output files will normally be shorter than your input files.
Use fade-time/safety margin of…
Depending on which of the region processing schemes you select , you need to set either a fade-in/out time or a safety margin.
In the case of Extract you will need to set a Fade-in/out Time. BarbaBatch will create a linear fade-in and -out within every region of the desired time. This is generally used as an impact softener or an anti DC-click fade. Set it to zero if you do not want to fade at all.
In the case of Compact you will need to set a safety margin. This is an amount of time added before and after every region before it is converted in the stripping process. Usually this is used as a safety margin for future cross-fading.
Use Dither
If you check this option, dither will be used everywhere this would be necessary.
The manual will go into great detail as to when, where and how will be dithered.
Copy markers, regions & loops
If you check this option, markers loops and region definitions will be copied to the output file whenever it is possible. (For example VOC files have no ability for region definitions, hence, regions can not be copied to VOC files.)
The timing of markers, loops and region definitions are corrected after sample rate conversion, extraction and compacting.
3 The Output button
Selecting a destination for the conversion output
None of the conversions is performed 'in place'. All the original files will stay on the disk unaltered. This means that you have to select a folder to store the result of the conversions. You do this by pressing the third button: 'Output'.
Here you can view the destination folder and the volume it is on, along with the free space on that volume. When you enter this window for the first time nothing is selected.
Press the 'Destination Folder:' button.
A 'Select Folder' dialog appears. Navigate to the desired destination folder or create a new one by pressing the button 'New Folder'.
When you finally select a folder, the window disappears and you return to the 'output' window.
In the output folder BarbaBatch will create a new folder, bearing the name of the conversion checked. If there are multiple conversions, multiple folders will be created on this level. The complete folder hierarchy of the input batch is copied to every conversion folder.
4 The Start button
Starting the conversion process
When an input batch is created, one or more conversions are checked and an output folder has been selected, the fourth button becomes active: the 'Start' button.
By pressing it you set BarbaBatch in motion. The main dialog disappears and is replaced by the status dialog, which will keep you updated during the conversions.
Along with that, a detailed log-book textfile of the conversion will be created in the output folder.
In this log-book, information about the conversion specification along with the names of the soundfiles converted is listed. If an error occurs you can read it in the status dialog and in the log file.
The logbook is a text file that can be opened using the menu items 'Show Log...' or 'Show Last Log' in the File Menu. You can also use any text processor to open the textfile. You can find the reason for any error occured by looking up the error message in the appendix Error Messages.
SoundDesigner I, SoundDesigner II,Audiomedia I, II & LC, SoundTools I & II, ProTools II, Sonic Solutions, Windows, Creative Voice, SoundBlasterPro, NeXT, SUN, Amiga, Macintosh, are trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective product's manufacturer.
