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Universal Sound Edit:  (USE)  
  June 19, 1992    


Instructions:

This program requires GS/OS 5.04 or 6.0.    With GS/OS 6.0. do not load EASY
ACCESS.

SPECIAL NOTE: USE will prevent the Signature modules from crashing the computer
or messing up the color palette.

Use this program to edit 8 bit digitized sound wave files.  If you are using a
mouse, you may choose items from the menu with the mouse button.  Position the
pointer over a menu title, then push and hold the mouse button.  A menu will
appear below the menu title.  Move the pointer over an item in the menu.  When
the desired menu item is highlighted, release the mouse button.  The chosen item
will blink rapidly and then execute.  If you decide you don't want an item from
the menu, move the pointer off  the menu and release the button.  If the item you
want is dimmed and can't be highlighted, this means that item is not currently
selectable.  If you are not familiar with this procedure of choosing an item from
the menu, read you IIgs users manual.

When the program is first started, a window will open, informing you that a
processor speed calibration in being done.  This procedure very accurately
measures the speed of your computers processor.  This is necessary to insure
accurate recording speeds.  If you do not intend to do any recording, click on
the button or push the Return key.  (If you do decide to record later, the
calibration will be performed again before recording can begin.)  Please heed the
warning not to move the mouse or push a key.  Doing so will cause extremely
inaccurate speed values, which will cause the record values to do very
undesirable things.  If you would like to see the effective operating speed of
your computer, press the C key.

There are 15 generators available to play sounds.  When you choose Play Sound
from the menu, the first available generator will be used.  The first generator
plays out of the right speaker.  The second generator plays out of the left
speaker.  The third generator plays out of the right speaker.  And so on, with
the 15th generator playing out of the right speaker.  Fifteen circles on the top
right of the screen tell you which generator is playing.  The first generator
corresponds to the circle on the right.  To play the sound in the sound buffer,
you can choose Play Sound from the menu, type the key equivalent OA-`, or click
on one of the circles.  The corresponding generator will play the sound and the
circle will turn multicolor.  You can stop that generator from playing by
clicking on the circle while it is multicolored.

Here is a description of all items selectable from the menu.  Most of these items
have keyboard equivalents (which are displayed in the menus), if you do not have
a mouse or prefer to use the keyboard.  These keyboard equivalents are summarized
later in this document.

Waveform About... Brings up a dialog box telling you a little bit about the
program.  You may clear the dialog box from the screen by positioning the mouse
pointer over the OK box and pushing the mouse button, or if you do not have a
mouse, push the return key.  Use this technique for all dialog boxes. 
(Positioning the pointer on a text box and pushing the mouse button could be
described as "Clicking on OK".  This terminology will be used in the rest of this
document.) Key equivalent is OA-@.

Waveform Help... Displays a help menu.  This item is not yet implemented.  Key
equivalent is OA-?.

Waveform Preferences... Displays a dialog box allowing startup preferences to be
saved to disk.  This item is not yet implemented.

File Open Sound... Displays a dialog asking for a file name.  Click on the file
you wish to load.  Then click on open.  Or, double click on the file to load it. 
Click on cancel if you do not want to load a file.  Key equivalent is OA-O.

File Append... Displays a dialog asking for a file name.  Click on the file that
you wish to append to the currently loaded sound file.  Key equivalent is OA-&.

File Save Sound... Displays a dialog asking for a file name.  Type the file name
which you wish to save the current sound wave into, or click on cancel to cancel
the save.  Key equivalent is OA-S.

File Save Selection... Displays a dialog asking for a file name.  Type the file
name which you wish to save the currently selected portion of the sound into, or
click on Cancel to cancel the save.  Key equivalent is OA-^.

File Page Setup... Allow various printer options to be changed.  This is not yet
implemented.

File Print... Prints the current screen to the printer.  This is not yet
implemented.  Key equivalent is OA-P.

File Quit... Terminates the program.  Key equivalent is OA-Q.

Edit Undo Not yet implemented.  Key equivalent is OA-Z.

Edit Cut Deletes the selected (highlighted) portion of the wave from the current
buffer, and saves the selected portion in the "Clipboard".  The wave will be
redrawn in its entirety.  You cannot cut a selection larger than memory
available.  Key equivalent is OA-X.

Edit Copy Copies the selected portion of the wave into the clipboard.  You cannot
copy a selection larger than memory available.  Key equivalent is OA-C.

Edit Paste Inserts the waveform in the clipboard into the waveform at the
beginning of the currently selected wave.  You cannot paste a clipboard larger
than memory available.  Key equivalents is OA-V.

Edit Clear Deletes the selected portion of the wave from the current buffer and
throws it away permanently.  Key equivalent is delete.

Edit Keep Keeps only the selected portion of the wave in the current buffer,
disposing of all of the unhighlighted part.  Key equivalent if OA-K.

Edit Select All Selects the entire wave in the buffer.

Edit Clear Clipboard Disposes of the wave stored in the clipboard.  NOTE: This
program uses a local clipboard.  The system clipboard is ignored.

Edit Play Clipboard Plays the wave stored in the clipboard at the currently set
play rate and volume.  Key equivalent is Control-`.

Display Show All Causes the waveform to be redrawn, with the entire waveform on
the screen.  Key equivalent is OA-A.

Display Redraw Causes the waveform to be redrawn, with the currently selected
portion of the waveform on the screen.  Selected portion will be deselected.  Key
equivalent is OA-W.

Display Adjust Play Speed... Allows waveform play speed to be adjusted to a
different play speed.  Adjusting to a slower play speed may have serious
detrimental affects on the quality of the sound.  Adjusting to a faster play
speed will not improve the quality of the sound, but will not decrease the
quality either.  Increasing the play speed and then decreasing the play speed
back to the original play speed may not result in the same quality you started
with.  It is recommended that the waveform be saved to disk before adjusting the
play speed.  This function is not yet implemented.

Display All Memory Causes the waveform buffer to include all available memory. 
If you have an Applied Engineering Ramkeeper in your computer, you can load a
sound into memory (or record one), turn the computer off, and then turn the
computer on, run this program, and select All Memory.  Sometimes you will find
that the sound is still in memory.  If it is not still in memory, it is because
it was overwritten by GS/OS or some other program.  This command will delete the
clipboard (whatever was in the clipboard will be in the main buffer).  Key
equivalent is OA-M.

Display Amplify... Increases or decreases the magnitude (volume) of the currently
selected portion of the waveform.  If nothing is selected, the entire waveform
will be amplified.  The maximum amplitude of the selected portion will be marked
with red lines in the waveform display.  The green lines show the desired maximum
amplitude.  You may select a higher or lower amplitude by clicking on the Up and
Down buttons.  Or let the program calculate the maximum amplification required to
make the sound as loud as possible without distorting the waveform by clicking on
Maximum.  The red lines may indicate a higher amplitude than the waveform
displayed.  This is because every point in the waveform cannot be displayed in
the 638 pixel display on the screen, and the higher amplitude bytes of the
waveform may be the undisplayed bytes.  Click on Amplify Now to start the
amplification, or Cancel to cancel the function.  NOTE: The amplify function and
most of the other functions under the Display menu take quite a long time to
perform.  If you choose to amplify a megabyte or two, you may have to wait
several minutes before you may continue.  Key equivalent is OA-+.

Display Clip... Allows the selected portion of the waveform to be clipped at a
certain level (for special sound effects or some other reason).  The current
maximum and minimum levels will be indicated by the red lines.  The green lines
are the desired clip levels.  Choose the desired maximum and minimum clip levels
by clicking on Top Up or Down and Bottom Up or Down, then click on Clip Now. 
Click on Cancel to cancel the function.

Display Dub... This function is active only if there is a wave in the clipboard. 
It allows the selected portion of the wave to be combined with the wave in the
clipboard.  Only the beginning spot of the selected waveform is important.  This
is where the clipboard waveform will start.  The entire clipboard will be dubbed
into the main waveform.  If the clipboard extends beyond the end of the main
waveform, the main waveform will be extended with silence.  Enter the percent of
amplification to perform before dubbing is to be performed.  Then click on the
kind of dubbing to perform.  Average will add the two waveform bytes and then
divide by 2.  Add and Clip adds the two bytes and clips any values above 255 or
below 1.  Add & Adjust adds the two bytes and divides by 1.4.  Add & Adjust
usually results in the best sounding dub.  Save the waveform to disk, then try
dubbing with each of the different dub types, and at different percentages, until
you get the best sounding dub.  Dubbing may be limited by available memory.  Key
equivalent is OA-D. Display Duplicate... Duplicates the selected portion of the
waveform the indicated amount of times.  Available memory may limit the amount of
duplicates you can make.

Display Echo Causes the selected portion of the waveform to be repeated on top of
the wave following the selected portion.  The echo level and duration can be set
by the user.  The current play rate is entered into the For Play Rate box.  This
value can be changed if desired.  The reason for the play rate is so that the
program can calculate the echo delay in seconds for the play rate, based on the
number of bytes to delay.  You may enter the delay either way.  If you enter the
number of seconds you wish to delay, the bytes will be calculated.  If you enter
the number of bytes to delay, the seconds will be calculated.  For very short
delays, use the bytes box.  The seconds is only accurate to .01 seconds.  The
Echo Decay % box indicates how much each progressive echo is from the previous
echo percentage.  A 100% echo will not decay at all.  50% would give each echo
half the volume of the previous echo, 200% would give each echo twice the volume.
 Echo decays greater than 100% very quicker exceed the volume capabilities of the
hardware (and the 1-255 range of the byte).  The Number of Echoes allows you to
stop the echoing after the desired amount of echoes.  If the echo is less than
100, you will probably usually want the echo to die naturally, so set the number
of echoes to a large number.  Number of echoes may be limited by available
memory.  Click on Do Echo to perform the echo, or Cancel to cancel the function. 
Key equivalent is OA-E.

Display Fade... Allows the selected portion of the waveform to fade out to
silence or fade in from silence. The beginning and ending percentage can be set. 
To completely fade out, set Start to 100 and end to 0.  Set Start to 0 and End to
100 to fade in.  Incomplete fades can be done by using values between 0 and 100. 
Two ranges can be entered and selected between quickly.  Click on Do Fade to
perform the fade.  Click on Cancel to cancel the fade.  Key equivalent is OA-F.

Display Offset Allows the user to add or subtract a value to the selected portion
of the waveform.  This could be useful to adjust a wave that was not centered
around a value of 128.  The current maximum and minimum values are indicated by
the red lines.  The green lines can be adjusted with the Up and Down button.  Or
select center to let the program calculate the offset required to center the
maximum and minimum points in the wave within the display.  Click on Do Offset to
perform the offset, or click on Cancel to cancel the offset.

Display Reverse Reverses the selected portion of the waveform.  Key equivalent is
OA-R.

Display Silent Sets the waveform values of the currently selected portion of the
waveform to 128, effectively causing silence when played back.  Key equivalent is
OA-T.

Display Wipe... Similar to Fade and Dub, but allows the main waveform to fade out
to silence as the clipboard fades into maximum level.  The clipboard can be
inserted before the selected main waveform and faded out, while the main waveform
fades in.  Or, the selected portion can fade out, while the remainder of the main
waveform is dubbed over the selected portion and faded in.  This function is not
yet implemented.

Sound Play Sound Plays the entire waveform or the selected waveform.  You may
perform most program functions while the sound is playing, including Play Sound
again.  The selected sound will play in addition to the currently playing one. 
Key equivalent is OA-`.

Sound Record Sound Allows recording of sounds if you have a sound digitizing card
in your computer.  Key equivalent is OA-'.  (MDIdeas Supersonic Digitizer
requires a modification to the card.  Register your copy of the program and you
will receive instructions on how to do this.  This modification will result in
better sound digitizing quality from your card, do to a cheap recording level
control implemented in this card.)(If you have an Applied Engineering Sonic
Blaster card, you can record with this program, but only in mono.  I am working
on a procedure to get the best sound out of this card.  You cannot yet set the
input level of the card with this program, and in some instances you may have to
run to Sonic Blaster editor to enable the card before using this program to
record.  Sorry about that.  I will be fixing this very soon.  When I add level
control for the Sonic Blaster card to this program, you will not be required to
set the slot selection to "Your Card" for the slot holding the Sonic Blaster
card, and it should be able to go into any slot.)(Are there any other Sound
Digitizing cards out there that I need to support?)

The Record Sound window will open up.  Type the desired recording speed in the
rate box, or click on Rate Up or Rate Down.  The Level value currently does
nothing.  Select other options.  Echo to speaker plays the sound being recorded
to the computer speaker while recording.  The sound quality is bad, but I find it
useful occasionally.  Note that echoing to the speaker reduces the maximum
recording frequency that the computer is capable of doing.  If you have an
accelerator card installed, this will not be a problem.  Select Set Play Rate to
Record Rate to make playing back the recorded sound easier.  Select Append to
Current Wave to allow the recorded waveform to be appended to the end of the wave
in the buffer.  Click on Cancel if you decide not to record.  Click on Start
Recording to initiate the recording procedure.  If the value in the rate box
cannot be matched exactly, it will be changed to the closest matching value that
can be made.  Push a key to stop recording, or wait for the buffer to fill. 
Pushing the mouse button will not stop recording. (If you have EASY ACCESS
loaded, pushing a key while recording will have no affect.)

Sound Rate Up Increases the playback rate by the smallest increment possible. 
Key equivalent is arrow up.

Sound Rate Down Decreases the playback rate by the smallest increment possible. 
Key equivalent is arrow down.

Sound Up Alot Increases the playback rate by a larger amount.  Key equivalent is
OA-arrow up.

Sound Down Alot Decreases the playback rate by a smaller amount.  Key equivalent
is OA-arrow down.

Sound Settings... Allows setting volume and  play rates.  Enter the desired
values.  Click on Test to hear the main waveform at the entered values.  The play
rate will be adjusted to comply with the limits of the hardware.  The volume can
be from 0 to 255.  NOTE: Loading a Sonic Blaster or Hyperstudio sound may change
the volume.  Click on Stop to stop the playing sound.  Click on OK to keep the
entered values.  Click on cancel to throw away the entered values.

Sound Memory... Allows the program to control the amount of memory allocated for
the sound buffer.  If you have a lot of memory but want some of your memory
reserved for Desk accessories or something else, you may tell the program to use
only a certain amount of memory.  Or, if you have little memory, you can ask the
program to try to purge memory, possibly making more memory available for the
sound buffer.  You may also set the program to allocate only the memory necessary
to hold the waveform loaded from disk.  In this mode, recording cannot be
performed, and editing functions cannot increase the size of the waveform.  This
function is not yet implemented.

Sound Stop Sound Stops all currently playing sounds.  Key equivalent is OA-\.

Format Binary Changes the format for saving the file to pure binary (no header,
no compression).

Format Sonic Blaster Binary Changes the format for saving the file to binary with
Sonic Blaster header type 0, no compression.

Format HyperCard IIGS This item is currently disabled.  It is the next format
that I will be adding to the program.  (This is the format GS/OS 6.0 uses.)

Format Coming Soon This item is currently disabled.

Format Sound Blaster Changes the format for saving the file to binary with Sound
Blaster header, no compression.

Format Hyperstudio Changes the format for saving the file to binary with
Hyperstudio (and Sound Studio) header, no compression.

Format Macintosh Changes the format for saving the file to binary with Macintosh
FSSD header, no compression.

Format Next Linear Changes the format for saving the file to 16 bit 2's
complement binary with Next header, no compression.  The program will convert the
sound upon loading to 128 centered sound, and back to 2's complement sound for
saving.  Current implementation is untested.

Format Next Linear Changes the format for saving the file to 16 bit 2's
complement binary with Next header, no compression.  The program will
automatically convert the sound wave to 16 bits, save the sound, then convert it
back to 8 bits.  Note that, with large files, this could take a minute or two to
convert.  When loading the NeXT waveforms, (8 bit or 16 bit) the sounds will be
converted to 8 bit 128 centered.  For 16 bit waves, the progress of the
conversion will be displayed.

Format Audio Master II Changes the format for saving the file to 8 bit 2's
complement binary with Audio Master II header, no compression.  The program will
convert the sound upon loading to 128 centered sound, and back to 2's complement
sound for saving.  Not all features of the format are available.  This format has
been tested only with the MSDOS program Disney presents The Animation Studio. 
Other implementations of the sound format may not work.

To select a portion of the waveform with the mouse, position the mouse pointer at
the beginning of the desired portion, hold down the button and drag the cursor
over the portion of the waveform to select, then release the button.  The
selected portion can be adjusted by repositioning the mouse, then pushing a shift
key and the mouse button.  The beginning or the ending of the selection will be
moved.  Or, push space to move the beginning of the selection to the cursor
position.  Push return to move the end of the selection to the cursor position.

Note that if the beginning and end of the selected portion are on the same
position (as can be noted in the Selection Info box at the bottom right of the
screen), no portion of the waveform is actually selected.  You must select at
least two bytes in the waveform for the program to accept any part of the
waveform as selected.  This does not hold true for the Dub function, which uses
only the Start position.  Push escape key to remove the selection (that is,
deselect the wave).


Keypress functions that are not available from the menu:

Tab Moves the screen display to the left, putting the right edge of the wave on
the screen onto the left edge of the screen.  Note that this will not reset the
selected portion of the wave.

Open Apple (or command)-Tab Moves the screen display to the right, putting the
left edge of the wave on the screen onto the right edge of the screen.  Note that
this will not reset the selected portion of the wave.

CA- button Edits the waveform on the screen.  Current implementation does not
work well.  This function is not yet implemented.

Summary of key equivalents and commands:

OA-A             Show All
OA-C             Copy
OA-D             Dub
OA-E             Echo
OA-F             Fade
OA-M             All memory
OA-O             Load Sound
OA-P             Print
OA-Q             Quit
OA-R             Reverse
OA-S             Save
OA-T             Silent
OA-V             Paste
OA-W             Redraw
OA-X             Cut
OA-Z             Undo
Space            Place selection beginning
OA-+             Amplify selection
OA-/             Help
OA-?             Help
OA-@             About
OA-^             Save selection
OA-&             Append
TAB              Move to next portion of waveform
Shift-TAB        Move to previous portion of waveform
(                Select from cursor position to end of buffer
)                Select from beginning of buffer to cursor position
~                Play sound
Control-`        Play clipboard
Arrow up         Play rate up
Arrow down       Play rate down
OA-Arrow up      Play rate up faster
OA-Arrow down    Play rate down faster
C                Display effective processor speed
R                Perform processor calibration
1-9              Set movement amount to 1/20 thru 9/20 of the screen

Right Arrow      Move selection beginning by movement amount set above
Left Arrow       Move selection beginning by movement amount set above
NOTE:  Editsnd is a shareware product.  This version is still in it's development.  If you intend to use this program, after a two week evaluation, please send $20.00 to the following address.  You will then be assured of receiving a copy of the final version.  The final version will have all items in the menu enabled.  Support for more sound file formats will be added.  (Sound Blaster .VOC, Sonic Blaster for the Apple IIGS, Hyperstudio for the Apple IIgs, Macintosh FSSD, NeXT, and Audio Master II are currently supported.  I plan to add more formats as soon as I can decode them, including ASIF, Audio IFF, Hypercard 1.1 (Sound resource), and Atari Amiga formats.  If you have information about other formats and would like them included, send me the information.)

Another enhancement I plan to add is the implementation of multiple sound
buffers, which will hold different sounds, which will be playable individually,
or sequenced using a sound sequencing window.  With the addition of multiple
buffers, I will be able to load instrument files into memory.  If there is enough
interest, I may even add the capability to load, play, and edit SoundTracker
files.

       Send the $20.00 shareware fee to:

       Gary Osborn
       823 Lewis Road
       Watsonville, CA  95076

Please mention the name and version of this program.  You will also receive a
"catalog" of all of my currently available shareware products.

I also welcome your input for development of this program.