Soundmaster is a utility that makes your Macintosh play sounds when certain system events occur (such as key clicks, disk insertion and ejection, and emptying the trash).
System requirements are System 6.0.4 or later, preferably 6.0.7 or later, and at least one megabyte of RAM memory, preferably at least two.
••• How do I install it? •••
If you are using System 6, place it in your System Folder. Then call up the Control Panels desk accessory and select it from the list.
If you are using System 7, place it in your Control Panels folder. Then double-click on it to call it up.
For convienence, I recommend that you create a folder named “Sounds” in the main window of your hard disk and put all your sounds in there.
••• What kind of events can I add sounds to? •••
Here is a list of the sound events, and when they happen:
• (Sample) — This sound is not attatched to any event. Instead it lets you to try out sounds in SoundMaster without affecting any of the other sounds
• Restart — when you select Restart from the Finder’s “Special” menu
• Shut Down — when you select Shut Down from the Finder’s “Special” menu
• Disk insert — when the system gets a disk inserted event (usually from actually inserting a phyisical disk, sometimes from a virtual disk such as a RAM disk) This will play when the Finder starts up because all your hard disks are “inserted” during startup.
• Bad disk — when an error occurs while trying to mount an inserted disk
• Disk request — when the “Please insert the disk” dialog comes up
• Beep — This plays when the beep (the one that you set in the “Sound” control panel) would normally be played. This will override the system beep sound set with the Sound control panel. If there is no beep sound set in SoundMaster, the normal system beep sound will play instead.
• Key click — when you press any key on the keyboard. Some of the keys can have their own key click sounds assigned: Return, Space, Tab, Delete, and Enter. If no sound is assigned to these special keys, they will play the regular key click sound.
• Chime count — after the Chime :00 sound, this plays as many times as the current hour (1 to 12 times in a row)
• Chime :00, :15, :30, and :45 — on the quarter hour
• Alarm Clock — when the alarm clock goes off.
• Empty Trash — when you select “Empty Trash” from the Finder’s “Special” menu
• Zoom open — when the Finder does the enlarging zoom effect from opening an icon
• Zoom closed — when the Finder does the shrinking zoom effect from closing an icon
• Grow window — when you resize a window
• Copy done — when a file copy is finished in the Finder
••• How do I set up the sounds? •••
Before SoundMaster will do anything for you, you must set it up by assigning sounds to events.
Follow these steps to set up a sound event:
1) Select the event to assign a sound to from the list on the left-hand side of the SoundMaster window
2) Select the sound to assign to it from the right-hand side of the SoundMaster window. You will probably need to navigate to the folder where your sounds are stored. Simply double-click on a folder to enter it and use the popup menu over the list of files to drop back to a previous folder level. Sorry, but sounds can only be selcted from the startup disk.
3) (Optional) Play the sound by clicking on the speaker icon at the top of the window.
4) If the sound is too slow or too fast, change the playback rate using the control labeled from “5.5kHz” to “22kHz”.
5) If you want to change the volume that this sound is played at, use the volume control in the upper right-hand corner of the window. Note that the “*” volume level means to use the current volume level selected from the Sound control panel. You must set the volume level for each sound you select.
6) Go back to step 1 for the next event. When you are finished, you must restart your Macintosh for the changes to take effect.
••• What do the controls do? •••
• Event selection list
This selects which event to which you want to assign a sound. Each event has its own playback rate, volume, off/on status, and sound file.
A little speaker with sound waves is shown next to the event if it is turned on. Click on it to turn the event on or off. If the event doesn’t have a sound set for it yet, you can’t turn it on, and it will just beep at you.
• Memory size indicators
The ‘Memory used’ number indicates the total amount of memory that will be used by SoundMaster and all the sounds you are using. The ‘Size’ number indicates how much memory the selected sound will use. The startup sound is disposed of after being played, so it is not counted in the ‘Memory used’ total. The sample sound is not used at all, so it is not counted either. Any sound that is used two or more times is counted only once.
You need to keep the total size ('Memory used' + the size of the startup sound) of your selected sounds to somewhat less than half of the memory installed in your Macintosh due to the memory constraints of the startup environment. If there isn’t enough memory to load one or more sounds, a small red “X” will be drawn through the icon during startup.
If the small red “X” shows up, your Mac may bomb with an ID=33 later in the startup sequence. If this happens, you will need restart and hold down the mouse button to prevent SoundMaster from loading. Then call it up from the Control Panel and turn off some sounds.
• Preferences
Initially all of these options are turned on:
•• Show icon during startup:
If this is checked, the SoundMaster icon will be shown on the bottom of your screen as it is installed during startup. If you don’t want SoundMaster installed, hold down the mouse button or the shift key during startup. The icon will have a large red “X” drawn through it. A small red “X” means there wasn’t enough memory for one or more sounds.
•• Disable sounds when volume is zero:
If this is checked, setting the Sound control panel volume to zero will completely disable all SoundMaster sounds from playing.
•• Disable key click during chime sounds:
If this is checked, key click sounds will not play during (and not interrupt) the chime sounds.
•• Disable key click during other sounds:
If this is checked, key click sounds will not play during (and not interrupt) any other sounds except for other key click sounds.
•• Disable other sounds during chime:
If this is checked, no other SoundMaster sounds will play during the chime sounds.
•• “Squish” long file names:
If this is checked, file names too long to be displayed in the file list are displayed “squished” in an attempt to show as much of the name as possible.
• About SoundMaster…
Displays this documentation in a dialog box along with information about which version of SoundMaster you are using.
• Speaker icon
This plays the currently selected sound at the selected volume and playback rate. If there isn’t enough memory to play the sound (or if you don’t have a sound selected), it won’t play anything.
• Playback rate control
This selects the playback rate of the sound file. Most sound files have the rate stored somewhere within them, but some older sound files don’t. If the playback rate can be determined, it is automatically clicked when you select a sound file.
If you don’t like dragging the control around to change the playback rate, you can click on the numbers to the left of it and set the rate directly.
• Volume control
This selects the volume for each sound. Initially, the Sample, Startup, Restart, Shutdown, and the various key click sounds are set at 7, and all other sounds are set to “*”. The “*” means to use the volume currently set in the Sound control panel. You can also click in the area to the left of the control to set the volume directly.
• File list and pop-up menu
This selects the sound file to play for an event.
Double-clicking on a sound will play it, just like clicking on the speaker icon. Double clicking on a folder opens up the folder. To go back a folder level, use the pop-up menu above the file list.
You can also type in the first few letters of the sound or folder you want to select or use the up and down arrow keys. Pressing return or enter will either play the selected sound or open the selected folder.
••• Where do I get new sounds from? •••
Sorry folks, but I don’t make the sounds. But that’s not a problem because there are a lot of sounds out there.
1) If you are running System 7, double click on your System file (inside the System Folder) and drag the sounds out as separate icons.
2) Record your own sounds with the Sound control panel. The sounds will appear in your System file, so follow step 1 above.
3) Record your own sounds using SoundEdit and the MacRecorder from Macromind.
4) Download collections of sounds from a BBS or online information service such as America Online, GEnie, or Compuserve.
5) Get collections of public-domain/shareware sounds from disk companies like Educorp.
6) Get collections of licensed sounds such as Nova Development's Kaboom and SoundSource Unlimited's Audio Clips series, which includes Star Trek and 2001 sounds.
••• Questions and Answers •••
Q: None of my sounds play and the SoundMaster icon doesn’t show at startup!
A: Make sure SoundMaster icon (the one that looks like a Mac with a speaker on the screen, NOT a folder containing SoundMaster, and NOT a StuffIt or other archive!) is in the Control Panels folder. (Or the System Folder if you use System 6.) If it is indeed there, try replacing it with a fresh copy.
Q: I want the DOS version of SoundMaster. Please send 360k disks.
A: There is no DOS or Windows or OS/2 version of SoundMaster, and I have no plans to make any.
Q: When I empty the trash, the sound plays when the warning dialog comes up.
A: Click on your trash icon and Get Info. Turn off the “Warn before emptying” check box.
Q: I just restored my hard drive from a backup and my sounds don’t work any more.
A: SoundMaster locates the sound files by using the ID numbers of folders. If you restore your hard disk from a backup, these ID numbers will probably change. If you open up SoundMaster as a control panel, it will try to find these folders by name and then get their new ID numbers. If this doesn’t work, you will have to reconfigure all your sounds.
Q: I have a hypercard stack with lots of sounds in it and I want to use the sounds with SoundMaster.
A: You will need to use ResEdit or a file editor utility to do this. If you have System 7, the easy way to do this is to make a copy of this stack and change its file type and creator to ‘zsys’ and ‘MACS’. Then double click on it (note: you might have to restart first) and drag out all the individual sounds. The more difficult way is to create new files of type ‘sfil’ and creator ‘movr’, and move one sound resource into each file using ResEdit.
Q: My disk insert sound plays with pauses in it.
A: The disk insert and disk eject sounds may sound scratchy or have pauses because the Disk Driver turns off interrupts when using the floppy drive, and this can interfere with the Sound Manager. This can also happen during AppleTalk operations such as printing to a LaserWriter or using an AppleShare server.
Q: When I select a sound in the Sound control panel, it still plays the same old beep sound.
A: SoundMaster overrides the beep sound that you choose in the Sound control panel. Older versions of the Sound Control panel would play the actual sound that you had chosen, but the latest version (8.0) changes the PRAM settings and then does a system beep, assuming that will play the sound you selected.
Q: When I’m playing sounds in SoundMaster and the Sound control panel is open, its volume control bounces around.
A: This is normal with the latest version (3.0) of the Sound Manager. Don’t worry, it knows to put the old volume level back.
Q: I am using a non-US System file and the Copy Done sound won’t play.
A: You have to use ResEdit to put a STR -4048 resource into your SoundMaster Preferences file. This resource should contain the title of your Finder’s file copy window.
Q: When I start up, there is an “X” through the SoundMaster icon and it beeps at me three times.
A: You are running an expired beta test version. Get a newer copy of SoundMaster.
Q: SoundMaster's startup icon does funny things with IconWrap 1.2.
A: IconWrap 1.2 is very old and does not support the 'icl8' version of ShowInit. (ShowInit is the software that is used to make icons show up on the bottom of the screen.)
••• Shareware and Contact info •••
This is a shareware program. If you like it, send $15 to the address below. Please tell me what version you have and where you got it (if you want to).
If you want a copy of the latest version of SoundMaster, either send a disk (only one disk, please, not half a box of them!), preferably in a size 000 bubble pack mailer with 52 cents postage (I *will* try to re-use your mailer), or $5 to cover postage and handling and disk (for a total of $20 if you are registering and want a disk). The latest version of SoundMaster can also be downloaded from America Online or GEnie.
Canadians, please don’t send personal checks. Because they don’t have a US bank number on them (US bank numbers look like a fraction of the form ‘12-3456/7890’), my bank doesn’t even want to look at them. Postal money orders are OK, and so are US money orders you can get at your bank (because they’re payable from a US bank).
I am sorry, but due to the volume of mail I get and the free time I don't have, I cannot answer individual inquiries. Also, please avoid sending me signature-required mail, as it may be days before I can get to the post office to sign for it. I do try to answer all my E-mail but sometimes I can get way behind on it.
Bruce Tomlin
15801 Chase Hill Blvd. #109
San Antonio, TX 78256-1037
America Online: BTomlin
GEnie: BTOMLIN
AppleLink: D4872 (I only log on occasionally; do not send Internet mail to this address)
Applelink: BTomlin@aol.com@INTERNET# (direct, but it’ll cost you 50 cents each way)
Internet: BTomlin@aol.com
Internet: bruce@f555.n387.z1.fidonet.org
••• DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for anybody else’s lack of taste in sound choice.
