M A K I N G I N V I S I B L E C L O C K S O U N D S
by Chris Holmes
You can make Invisible Clock speak in your own voice by recording new sounds for the Invisible Clock Sounds file with a sound editing program such as SoundEdit Pro™ from Macromedia.
DETAILS…
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The sounds are stored in 'snd ' resources in the Invisible Clock Sounds file. Invisible Clock loads the sounds by name, making it easy to match sounds with their purpose. The sounds can be any type of sampled 'snd '. For example, I originally made 22KHz sounds but decided to reduce them to 11KHz to save space.
As another example, the 'snd ' resource entitled "Invisible Clock Sounds" is 11KHz with 3:1 MACE compression. This sound, which describes the sounds file, can be played by double-clicking the file. If you replace this resource with your own recording, you can provide a sampling of the voice held within the file.
SIMPLE CHANGES…
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The "It's" sound is played before each time announcement. If you want a more noticeable announcement of the time, you might paste a beep sound in front of the recording of the sound in the "It's" 'snd ' resource.
You can eliminate any sound by duplicating the "Silence" 'snd ' resource and giving it the name of the sound you don't want. This is useful if you decide you never want to know "about" what time it is when you start Invisible Clock.
RECORDING YOUR OWN…
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For general instructions on using SoundEdit Pro to create your new sounds, see below.
To get the appropriate inflection for each part of the time announcement, it's best to record each part in context. For instance, when you separate a recording of "It's one o'clock. It's two o'clock" into separate sounds, they will sound more natural when recombined than if you separate a recording of individual parts, such as "one two three".
It's important to enunciate the words so they are easily separated: when you say "eight o'clock" without thinking about it, you really say "ay-duh-klok" .
You might use the script listed below to record all combinations of the announcement elements. (The first paragraph is the description that plays when you double-click on the sounds file.)
---------- S c r i p t ----------
"This file contains the sounds used by Invisible Clock. To use this file, name it 'Invisible Clock Sounds' and place it in your Preferences folder. Do not drag this file onto your System Folder icon."
"It's Monday, about twelve o'clock."
"It's Tuesday, about one fifteen."
"It's Wednesday, about two thirty."
"It's Thursday, about three forty-five."
"It's Friday, about four o'clock."
"It's Saturday, about five fifteen."
"It's Sunday, about six thirty."
"It's Monday, about seven forty-five."
"It's Tuesday, about eight o'clock."
"It's Wednesday, about nine fifteen."
"It's Thursday, about ten thirty."
"It's Friday, about eleven forty-five."
------- E n d S c r i p t -------
USING SOUNDEDIT PRO…
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Because of the naming convention used by your Mac to play a System 7 sound file (which is what Invisible Clock Sounds really is), you have to take special steps in SoundEdit Pro to ensure you don't get an error dialog instead of hearing a sound when you double-click the file.
Make a copy of the original Invisible Clock Sounds file. Open the copy with SoundEdit and record a new description for the file. You might want to use the script above when you record. Close the file and save your changes.
Use a file utility such as ResEdit or Drop•Info to change the Type of the file from 'sfil' to 'sfiz' (or some other nonexistent Type code). In SoundEdit, choose Open, click Resource, and open the file.
Open a new, untitled document and record the time announcements, again using the script if you wish. (You may want to save this to a temporary file.)
Open each sound of the Invisible Clock Sounds copy and paste into it a corresponding portion of your untitled document.
After you've replaced each of the sounds in the copy, save your changes and quit SoundEdit Pro.
Using your file utility, change the Type of the file from back to 'sfil'.
Your sounds file is ready for use. Name it "Invisible Clock Sounds" and place it in your Preferences folder. Start Invisible Clock and use the Announce Time command to hear your sounds.
