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The Datafile PD-CD 3
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PDCD_3.iso
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utilities
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utilst
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waveedit
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!WaveEdit
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WaveEditUK
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1993-09-29
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WaveEdit 2.50 help.
-------------------
Ok, this file should enable you to start using WaveEdit, but it is fairly
brief. So, if you find any features which are not described here, write a few
lines about them, and you will end up with a really good help-file! :-)
WaveEdit is used to generate and edit samples, and to sample them with the
sampler built in 'Egebladet'.
When you've started it, click menu on the icon. The interesting thing here
is 'Create', which will enable you to enter the length of the sample you wish
to draw/generate/sample. The other way is to load a file by dragging it to
the icon.
Files loaded by WaveEdit:
&FFD (Data) WaveEdit's format. The data is logarithmic and there is no
other information in them.
You can double-click on a Data file while WaveEdit is running
to have it loaded and played once.
&FFF (Text) Textfiles containing information about loops etc. They are used
for exchanging information with Mascom2 (my musicprogram), but
you can use them for storing information about loops.
Other types can be loaded, if you confirm the question asked. E.g. modules
with samples in them.
Using the editor.
-----------------
The large window displays the sample. The toolbox contains various tools.
There are two main modes in the toolbox: Mark and Draw.
Mark is used for marking an area of the sample. It is this area which will
be affected by most other functions. It is also used for defining the loop.
When in 'Mark' mode, the sample window will react like this:
Select-click: No reaction.
Select-drag: To mark an area.
Select-doubleclick: To place the cursor (see below).
Adjust-click: Adjust the marked area.
Adjust-drag: No reaction (yet).
Adjust-doubleclick: No reaction.
Draw is used 1 or 2 times until you find out that it is virtually impossible
to draw a useful sound. Usually it is used for correcting the sample for minor
faults (e.g. a scratch in the record, a single distorted peak etc.).
Draw by dragging Select in the window. The close values will gradually
approach the mouse position. By adjusting the number in the toolbox, you can
specify how many values are actually 'close'.
The rest of the toolbox are the actual tools:
'Dots', 'Amp', 'Line' and 'Full' is 4 different ways of displaying the
sample. 'Full' will always draw all the bytes, and is therefore slow at low
zoom-factors.
'In' and 'Out' is used to zoom.
When clicking 'Start' or 'End', the window will scroll to the start or end
of the marked area.
The arrows beside these will adjust the area 1 byte at a time.
The note to the left will play the sound until you release Select.
The note with the dark grey area will only play the marked part.
The small button with the 'L' will, if you have specified a loop, play the
loop indefinitly. You can alter the loop while it is playing, to get a good
one. Stop it by clicking 'L' again.
Loop/No loop turns the looping on and off.
The menu.
---------
'About' contains a submenu, with information about the sample and the marked
area. Please note, that the frequency displayed in the 'Marked' window has got
nothing to do with the sample frequency, which WaveEdit knows nothing about.
It is the frequency which the tone will have if the marked area contains one
wave and is looped. This can be used for hitting the right frequency when
looping.
'Save' is used for saving of course.
'Save loop' will be accessible when the sound isn't called '<Untitled>' for
technical reasons. is saves the afore-mentioned Mascom control file, which you
can use to store loops.
'Make module' will generate a module, which can be used to play the sound
with the normal 'Sound_...' SWIs (or SOUND from Basic). You can specify whether
some of the parametres should be held constant. This is useful if the sound
is going to replace the system beep.
Loops are not implemented in the module yet.
Drag the module-icon to a filer-window to generate the module.
'Marked' leads to a menu which will be described later.
'Sample' leads to a window whwre you can sample sounds.
The 'Trigger' is a level which the sampler will wait for, before it starts
sampling. Don't set this too high if you can't supply a full signal. The
sampler will _wait_, forever if neccessary.
While it is waiting, the screen colour changes according to the input. When
The trigger level is exceeded, the colour freezes.
All DMA and interrupts are suspended while sampling, to get the best quality.
'Bypass' will activate the bypass-function. It is stopped by moving the
mouse, so don't. It will continuously feed the input from the sampler directly
to the sound output after a short delay. The frequency will be the same as
set in the sample window. Bypass is very useful if you want to make good
samples. You can hear how it is going to sound, and adjust your filters
accordingly.
'Resample' will open the resample-window and the keyboard. To resample a
sample means to extend or compress the sound as if it had been sampled at
another frequency. It is a 'No Compromises' routine (i.e. slow), and the result
is comparatively good. It uses 4th degree polynomials to estimate the missing
values. The new frequency is entered in the window, or played on the keyboard.
You play the tone you want to get when the resampled sound is played at the
nominal 20.833 kHz (the o on the keyboard).
It is used mainly for altering the frequency of sampled records, which is
probably different to the rest of your samples.
The polynomials are calculated 1 by 1 at _each_ byte using _floating_point_ in
_Basic_, so it can take a while (several minutes). Check the parametres before
you start it.
'Toolbox' will open or close the toolbox, and specify whether it is to be
opened each time you load a sample.
'Keyboard' is the same for the keyboard.
Select on the keyboard will play the sample at various frquencies, Adjust will
only play the marked area. Tuning is used for fine-tuning the frequency before
resampling.
The 'Marked'-menu.
------------------
Mark all will mark the entire sample.
Clear will clear the marking.
To start will move the start-mark to the start of the sample.
To end moves the end-mark to the end of the sample.
Save will save the marked area.
Process will be described below.
Cut out will delete everything _but_ the marked area.
Repeat will make a copy of the marked area and mark both copies. 'Repeat'
again afterwards will therefore result in 4 copies and so on.
Delete will delete (remove) the marked area from the sample.
Move will move the marked area to the cursor position.
Copy will copy the marked area to the cursor position.
PingPong is a special function for looping. It will copy the marked area
twice, reverse the middle piece, and mark the 2 first pieces.
The practical upshot of which is, that the loop will run
alternately forwards and backwards. This is very useful for
difficult loops.
The 'Process' submenu contains various functions to process the marked area.
Some of these are shaded, because they are not really in a useful state yet.
The filters are off. They are partly converted to mc and doesn't work yet.
The logical operations are simple:
'Silence' will put zeroes in the marked area.
'Reverse' will swap the byte-sequence.
'Straighten' will make a straight line between the start and the end level.
This is mainly used for removing noise manually.
'De-offset' ought to be called 'De-Amiga'; it will calculate the DC-level
of the marked area, and then subtract it. A non-zero DC-level causes audible
clicks when played and is present in samplings from cheap Amiga samplers.
'Amplify' will amplify the sound by a number of dB. Due to the logarithmic
nature of the Arc's D/A converters, amplification is nearly loss-free as long
as it doesn't get distorted, of course.
'Maximise' is an easy way of amplifying. It will calculate how much
amplification is needed to maximise the dynamic level without distorting.
The l