Apple II Music & Sound Conference February 28, 1990 10:00 pm ET Subject: Digitizing for HyperStudio Forum Leader: Tim Barwick (AFL TimB) AFL TimB Tonight's topic is Digitizing for Hyperstudio but as usual the floor is really open to anyone! Anyone here have any questions, thoughts about this topic? AFC JoyceM How does one digitize for Hyperstudio? AFA Gene Hyperstudio is the easiest to use IMHO of all the setups. JSchober Anyone know the format of HyperStudio $D8 digitized files?? They're ALMOST straight waveforms, but not quite. AFL Marty Check the StudioWare library Joe. Sound Shop file format should be there. AFA Gene Joe: We have that info in our libraries and also in StudioWare. AFL TimB The nice thing about Sound Shop is (as I recall) it'll accept almost ANY wave form, including Music Studio's. AFC JoyceM How, Tim? AFL Marty Yes. It even accepts BIN files from AO software. AFL TimB Just open a file Joyce. It'll open anything (kinda like Sound Studio) AFC JoyceM BTW, Gene's latest music endeavor on SDGS 5 is fantastic!!! AFC JoyceM How about some tips on digitizing for HyperStudio you HS genius'? AFA Gene Thanks Joyce AFC JoyceM WordWorks is also a great program. AFA Gene I've noticed that WordWorks can actually keep up with the average typing speed. (unlike AWGS) AFL TimB Me? AFC JoyceM Anyone, Tim. AFL TimB I have to admit that I use Audio Animator for my digitizing. However, some rules are universal. Don't overload the sound with too much volume, keep your distance from the microphone. AFL Marty What are some good sources for sounds to digitize? I don't have a CD player. What else is there? AFL TimB Good source for sounds...Any ideas folks? AFC JoyceM Cassettes? AFL Marty (Other than running about the house with a microphone) AFA Gene Live voice input? Music boxes? Singing wine bottles? Markus Tapes would end up having more noise. I think if you don't have a CD player it's best to do your own samples. AFL TimB (Let's not forget our sound library) AFL Marty I dunno. Have you used these? ELECTMUSIC I wish all the digitizers would accept any sound file. AFA Gene I wish I could digitize off my Sony Mega Bass Walkman. It would be soooo convenient. AFC JoyceM I have used cassettes, Marty...if the tape isn't too noisy, the sound is okay, also if the dogs don't bark when recording. AFL Marty Is there any way to filter out the noise after digitizing? AFA Gene Joyce/Marty: Of course you can also Filter after digi-ing off a tape. LindsayGS With these digitizers, what happens when you sample at one pitch & play another? JSchober Lindsay: You sound like a chipmunk or a dead man, depending on whether you speed up or slow down playback. AFC JoyceM How, Gene? AFL TimB Marty, Sound Shop has a really neat smoothing tool. AFL Marty Is that what that's for? AFL Scott It's in the Digitized sounds library about 8 screens in. LindsayGS Sounds great! JSchober The chipmunk part is fun. Markus No real easy way to clean a sample of noise...but ACER has the neat side effect of cleaning up samples slightly. AFL TimB If you have a sound that is dirty, you can use the smoothing tool to clean things up. However, repeated use does cause audible loss of brightness. AFL Marty Neat. I discovered something that some of you may not know. I've had occasions where I needed a sound file in other than Sound Shop Format. Soundstudio will load Sound Shop files in and let you save them in BIN format. You may have to play a bit with the speed though. AFL TimB Right, as I mentioned above Sound Shop AND Sound Studio are both very broadminded as to what files they'll work with. AFC JoyceM Is it easier to use HS digitizer or Audio Animator or MDIdeas digitizer? AFL TimB Depends on what you want to do. My feeling is that AA has the best quality and the process of importing into HS format via Sound Shop isn't too bad. However, it's really easy to record a sound directly into the stack with HS. Different strokes for different folks. ANyone have any opinions? AFL Marty I prefer to digitize with Sound Shop. That way I have the file to use for other projects. AFL Scott Have you noticed that AA at high speed digitizes improperly, though? The sounds play too fast. AFC JoyceM Since I only have HS and the MDIdeas digitizers, don't know the difference. AFL TimB Haven't noticed that Scott tho' I know that AA has a software upgrade coming out in the near future. AFL Marty One place where HyperStudio needs some improvement is in handling multiple buttons that connect to the same sound. As far as I can tell, two buttons that use the same sound require the sound to be stored twice in the stack. There really should be a way to POINT to the sound the second time it's used. AFC JoyceM Marty, where do you get your sources for your sounds, for your Excellent Stacks? AFL Marty Scott did most of the sounds for the Excellent Stacks. One of the voices is mine, another is my 5 year old nephew's. AFL Scott Also they need include ACEing in the Sound Shop. Or once on the disk if you use the Advance features. AFC JoyceM Do you think there will be an update soon for HS, Marty? AFL TimB Joyce, there is an update coming down the pike, 2.1 AFC JoyceM Scott, what was your source for the sounds in your Excellent Stacks, which, BTW were/are excellent. AFL Scott I created them all myself. I just played guitar, talked, played keyboard, and made alot of noise one weekend when my wife wasn't home! AFL TimB I'd like to remind y'all that Ed Bogas - GS Music Master and composer of the Garfield Cartoon show theme is our guest next week. He called me last night at 12.30am to confirm! AFL Scott I should add that All sounds were done using the HyperStudio Digitizer ( I did use a different mic, though). AFL TimB Can't blame you Scott, in fact that's a good recommendation. The second item you should buy after getting HS is a better mic. The first is a better speaker! AFC JoyceM What other hints do you HS fanatics have for digitizing? AFL Scott Agreed... Better speakers, and a good cardoid mic. Markus What mic do you use Scott? AFL TimB The HS mic acts as a speaker too if you plug it into a speaker jack! AFL Scott I just used a Shure M51, I think.... I can't find it, now, though. Keyboards were recorded Direct. Markus Is it dynamic? AFL Scott I'm sorry. I just know it's extremely directional, Mark. AFC JoyceM How do you do that, Scott? AFL Scott I just ran the line outs of my synth to a stereo to Mono converter and fed that to the input... I had to really tweak on the recording level, though. Guitars were recorded through a Rockman, direct using the same setup. AFL TimB I'd like to digitize some of the SynthLAB sounds for uploading if I get a chance. AFL Marty How would you do that Tim? Two computers? AFL TimB Marty, nah. Tape it in and replay it out. Markus Did you use any effects, Scott? AFL Scott Nope.. just raw power!:) AFA Gene The Rockman is a very neat little thing. Fun fun! AFA Gene Do any of you out there digitize from CD? AFL TimB I have Gene. How about other people? AFL Marty I'm poor. I can't afford a CD. AFA Gene Has anyone been able to do it with out an amplified source (i.e. Discman)? AFC JoyceM Tim, how would you digitize from a CD, direct? AFA Gene Same way as from Tape. Gerry MPC I have a CD...but don't know how to do all of this music stuff yet. ELECTMUSIC I always digitize from CD. AFL TimB Of cause we have to be careful, the CD sound samples are often copyrighted. Markus Gene, you should be able to connect the DiscMan right up to the card. AFC JoyceM I have two CD players...just have digitized by putting the mic close. AFA Gene That's what my CD-friends tell me, but me with my measly MegaBass Tape player screwed up badly. AFL Scott Just take the line outs to the input of your digitizer and tweak on the recording level! Markus You'd have to play with the volume and digitizer gain controls carefully. AFA Gene I know, I've tried all that. AFL TimB It's a trade off between sound quality and disk space. That's one thing I really admire about the Coke Pouring Sound. Markus Gene, you want to record from your MegaBass? AFA Gene Yah. AFL Scott Actually , I bought Audio animator so I could record riffs from CD's in order to learn them. I was disappointed when I found AA plays them back faster than I recorded them. AFL TimB Slow 'em down then. AFL Scott Unfortunately, the speed control isn't precise enough, Tim. AFA Gene But even if you slow down playback, the pitch changes anyway. Markus So you already tried direct connecting the MegaBass to the digitizer card? AFC JoyceM How would you record directly from a CD using HS digitizer card? AFA Gene Yep. Amplified it works fine, but I'd like to be able to do it without moving a whole lotta equipment around. (i.e. w/ just the walkman.) Megabass walkman (whoops did not clarify that) Markus The MegaBass has an line out? Oh, it's a Walkman. Take a cable and hook up the two, keep the walkman volume real low. Then slowly turn up the gain on the card till you get a decent signal reading. Tried that? AFL Scott Joyce, take the line outputs and feed them into a stereo... from there, switch the stereo to mono and take it's line outputs (one only) to the input of the HS Digitizer. It all depends on whether or not your preamp stage is active or passive, though. AFA Gene Yah, tried that. Still poor results. I was wondering if anyone was successful. AFC JoyceM Has anyone tried taking the original 33rpm stereo demo disks and recording some of those sounds...that is if you all remember when stereo was introduced? Markus What do the results sound like, Gene? AFA Gene Like it's being played badly in concert "live," Markus. AFL Scott That means, switching to Mono won't do much good, so you'll have to buy a stereo to Mono converter and take it's output to the HS digitizer. Markus Does your cable go from stereo to mono? AFL Scott Not mine.... I have a box somewhere! AFA Gene No, stereo. This was not at home tho so I didn't really play with it a lot just for a few hrs. but anyway was just wondering. ELECTMUSIC I am curious as to uses people have for digitized sounds, outside of HStudio. Markus Hmmm. Gene, if the card is getting the sum of the left and right channels, you are going to have phase cancellation (frequencies will drop out). AFC JoyceM I don't have other uses, Greg. AFL Scott I was using them to learn new stuff on the guitar. Markus Make sure you have a mono signal coming in, either the left or right channel. Markus Does the sample sound noisy or distorted? LindsayGS Speaking of digitized sounds in HS, can you port them to your own programs or just HS stacks? AFA Gene Yes. Actually I've seen this done quite well on the Amiga in stereo. LindsayGS I think the new synth tools will let you do this, although there isn't sampling. AFL TimB Lindsay, if you use Sound Studio (per Marty's suggestion) you can bring HS sound files $D8 back to BIN format. Markus Yes, but that's in stereo. If you digitize mono you will have probs. AFL Scott Markus, My box doesn't have phase cancellation problems. Actually, I never really cared. AFL TimB Don't forget that HS can't handle stereo. LindsayGS Tim - you mean digitize with HS, then save and load with SS? AFL TimB Load and save with SS but same thing. Markus How's that, Scott? Actually, you might not notice phase problems on a GS sample. AFL Scott It's just a piece of stereo I hacked when I was a teenager... Panasonic, I think. AFC JoyceM How about the sounds in Fantavision-Gs, anyone convert them yet? AFL TimB Good question Joyce, I have Fantavision but never really used it. Markus I have trouble hearing phase cancellation myself. AFA Gene Most of the FVGS sounds have been done in the conventional way anyway. Like Applause. Conventional = public domain on SS, AA, or HS ELECTMUSIC Tim, do you think the new MIDI tools will establish some standards for sound files? AFL TimB In a word Greg, no. Maybe set a standard for MIDI files, but we already have one. AFL Scott Why not, and what standards are needed? AFL Marty What will it take to get a standard, then? Markus Is Bill Basham still working on more DiversiTune updates? ELECTMUSIC Well, with so many different sound file formats, If Apple establishes one for the tool, then I can't see digitizing programs not supporting it AFL TimB Markus, it's tough to tell. He seems to blow hot and cold on the project currently. LindsayGS Greg - does synthlab support digitizing - I didn't think so? ELECTMUSIC Supposedly, Synthlab is going to allow direct access to the Esoniq from MIDI. AFL TimB Sure does Greg. :) ELECTMUSIC So, Apple will need to specify a sound file format for MIDI to access. LindsayGS Greg - I don't understand - will it support digitizing but not do it? ELECTMUSIC I think Digitizing programs are going to have to bring there file formats inline with what Apple's tools are working with. AFC JoyceM Do you think that Roger eventually will support the new Tool too? AFL TimB I hope so. Tho' last time I spoke to him hadn't even heard of it. AFL Marty It makes sense Joyce. AFC JoyceM Ah...the programmers are the last to know! AFL TimB Any good GS rumors? Markus Tim, are the tools available from APDA yet? ELECTMUSIC I am somewhat hopeful that Apple's tools is going to force the File Format Issue. AFL TimB Don't believe so Markus. BillP Mac magazines are still talking about that Mac/Apple card. ELECTMUSIC Tim, I heard a big staff meeting at Apple Co last Thursday set a direction for development. AFL TimB What direction Greg? ELECTMUSIC Because of the economics. Apple wants to develop just the product line they have now. For example: the low price color mac is TOO BE the GS!!!!!!! There is to be a strong direction to the GS and its capabilities...especially in solving the inexpensive Mac situation AFL TimB Sounds like a good answer to me Greg. ELECTMUSIC Scott, this was as of last Thursday! AFC JoyceM Hope it's true, Greg AFL TimB Keep your eyes out for new developments and see y'all online. Next week is Ed Bogas. America Online, 1990