sound shapEs is a small application that takes any music played into the Sound In port (or on an internal CD player, or an AV monitor, or built in Microphone) and produces mesmeric patterns to aid your enjoyment. It seems to like what the UK government recently termed ‘repetitive beat music’ rather a lot 8-).
sound shapEs is free. You may distribute it freely as long as i) no charge is made for it ii) it is not altered in any way iii) this ReadMe is included with it.
Requirements
A Mac with sound input capability (naturally).
System 6.0.7 or later.
A monitor displaying at least 16 colours/grays. BW will work, but flickers a lot. (see list of future fixes)
sound shapEs has been tested on a PowerMac 7100/AV running System 7.5, various Powerbooks with built in microphones, as well as an ancient Portable using system 7.0, and I can’t see why it won’t run on anything else. If sound shapEs doesn’t find a sound input device, it simply quits. It only draws to the main monitor, leaving all others alone. To get enough drawing speed, sound shapEs gives no time to any other applications running. This means, for example, that background printing will stop and more importantly the Mac will not respond to discs inserted for the duration. Get your CDs in the drive and appearing on the desktop before you start.
How do I use it?
If you are using the internal CD, and your Mac allows playthrough of sound, set it to play through on the Sound control panel (you won’t be able to use the panel once sound shapEs starts). If your Mac can’t send sound straight through, you will have to connect your sound source to both an amplifier and the Mac.
Double click on the application. Any AppleCD or compatible player will start up from track 1. If you have more than one CD on the SCSI chain, ‘any’ refers to the one with the lowest SCSI ID.
Feel immensly happy, friendly towards strangers and like dancing for hours on end in a disused warehouse.\
Caveat: Hybrid data and audio CD's will not be recognised for the moment (under development as I write) - start them playing with the AppleCD Remote before running sound shapEs.
Move the mouse left and right to decrease/increase the amount the image jitters.
Move the mouse up and down to decrease/increase the pulse distance of the image.
Use + and - to increase/decrease the length of the image trails.
Use Space to force an image change.
Use the left and right arrows to rewind/fastforward through the current track.
Use the up and down arrows to skip forward/backward from track to track.
Type Command-Q to return to the desktop.
If you hold down the command or option keys when you start sound shapEs, it won’t clear the screen first.
What is Chthonic Ionic Software?
This is the first Chthonic Ionic Software venture into real applications. sound shapEs was written as an experiment in realtime graphic feedback, but got a little carried away. Previous CIS releases include a series of Hypercard Stacks, described below. Chthonic Ionic software is the pretentiously titled alias of Mike Trinder.
Please send all praise/bug reports/ideas for futher images to Mike Trinder, South Bramble, Sunning Avenue, Ascot, Berks SL5 9PW, England.Or Email mpbt100@cam.ac.uk.
Problems
Flicker, especially when running in BW. This is due to the simplistic colour implimentation :(. A decent colour system, ie selectable colour sets and colour animation, is the next priority.
Could do with plug-in image algorithms (so you can not use ones you hate), but that is a bit much for the moment.
Eye strain. Not a lot I can do about this.
History
Version 0.5ß Sept 94
First implementation. Very simplistic. Parameters all hard coded. Would only work if some other application was also monitoring sound levels. Not distributed.
Version 1.0 Oct 94
Stopped Menu Bar showing.
Now works whether other applications are using the sound or not.
Version 1.1 Nov 94
Added CD controls and more than one image algorithm and a system for choosing an appropriate one.
Version 1.2 Jan 95
Fixed the rewind and fast forward controls which skipped about randomly and were therefore worse than useless.
Added image trails, made the mouse a bit more sensitive and added even more images (the dancers).
Version 1.2a Jul 95
Added gamma fades using the excellent GammaPas.lib by Matt Slot & Matthew Xavier Mora, so that the screen fades out a the end of a track (this is done purely by listing to levels, so it won't fade mixed tracks). Flirted with having a groovy colour splash screen but that sent the file size skyrocketing. Contact me if you would like the art work anyway!
Version 1.2.1 Oct 95
Simplified the mechanism for obtaining sound levels from the CD which resulted in wierd behaviour on some macs- I’m now doing as it should have been done from the start. Also the CD now stops playing when you quit by popular request.
Other CIS releases (all Hypercard based)
Battleships 1.2 (Shareware $10) An enhanced version of the classic game that allows two players to bomb hell out of each other across an AppleTalk network. Available on CompuServe and various BMUG and EduCorp CDs.
Agon 1.0 (Shareware $10) A network based implimentation of the Victorian strategy board game. BMUG should have a copy.
Millenium. (Free) A millenial countdown clock, counting the seconds until the next century. (and I know I can’t spell Millennium)
HyperKeys 2.1 A hypercard programming utility for assigning scripts to keystrokes.
Under Development
PopEd 1.0 (Shareware) A decent level editor for Prince of Persia 1.0. Totally redesign the game now that you can complete it with your eyes closed.
