AUDEMO(1) USER COMMANDS AUDEMO(1)
NAME
audemo - NCDAudio record and play demo
SYNOPSIS
audemo [-audio servername] [-toolkitoption ...] [directory]
DESCRIPTION
audemo provides an X-based window-oriented user interface to
the NCDaudio service. It allows the user to play pre-
recorded sound files, record new sound files and to manipu-
late NCDaudio buckets.
AUDEMO AND THE ATHENA WIDGET SET
audemo uses the X Toolkit Intrinsics and the Athena Widget
Set. For more information, see the Athena Widget Set docu-
mentation.
SCREEN LAYOUT
audemo starts out with a single window divided into several
areas:
o A collection of command buttons.
o A left and right level meter.
o A volume indicator and control slider.
o An information window.
o An editable field containing the directory to be
searched for sound files.
o An editable field containing a list of sound files to
search for.
o A window containing the list of sound files that may be
selected for playing or loading into buckets.
PLAYING A SOUND FILE
audemo can play sound files in any of the following file
formats:
NeXT/Sun
Filenames in this format typically have a .snd or .au
suffix.
RIFF WAVE
This is format used by Microsoft Windows 3.1. Filenames
in this format typically have a .wav suffix.
Creative Voice
This format is produced by PCs using the Creative Labs
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Soundblaster card. Filenames in this format typically
have a .voc suffix.
To play a sound file you must first select it from the list
of files in the file window. You can control which files
are listed in this window by editing the Directory and/or
Template fields and clicking on the Rescan button. To
select a file, single-click on the filename. This will
highlight the filename and display information about the
file in the information window. The information displayed
includes:
Filename
The full pathname of the file.
Format
The encoding format of the audio data.
Tracks
The number of tracks of audio data.
Frequency
The frequency at which the audio data was sampled.
Duration
The duration of the audio data in seconds.
Text
Any text information stored in the file.
Once the file has been selected, you can start it playing by
clicking on the Play command button. A shortcut for playing
a file is to double-click on the file name. This will
select the file and start it playing. When a file is play-
ing, the Play command button is highlighted. To stop the
playing of a file, click on the highlighted Play button. To
enable the left and right level meters, click on the Meter
button before starting to play the file. To disable the
left and right level meters, click again on the highlighted
Meter button. To adjust the volume level, use the volume
slider.
RECORDING TO A FILE
audemo can record sound files in the NeXT/Sun audio file
format. To record a sound file you must first bring up the
record window by clicking on the Record command button.
This will bring up a window containing the following fields
and controls:
Filename
The name of the file you wish to create. Unless a path
is specified here, the file will be created in the
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current directory. audemo will automatically append
'.snd' to the given filename.
Max Duration
See RECORDING TO A BUCKET.
Read Only
See RECORDING TO A BUCKET.
Frequency
The sampling rate (in hertz) for the recording. Higher
sampling rates yield better quality sound but take up
more disk and memory space. Common sampling rates are
8000 (good for voice annotations), 11000, 22000, and
44000.
Mic(rophone)
This button tells the audio server if you've got a
microphone attached to the audio input jack. Clicking
this button will highlight it and cause the audio server
to boost the input gain to a level suitable for record-
ing with a microphone.
Format
This is a menu of audio data encoding formats.
Comment
Text (such as a description) you wish to put into the
audio file.
Gain
This slider is used to adjust the recording gain level.
Record
This button starts or stops the recording.
Monitor
This button enables or disables monitoring.
New Bucket
See RECORDING TO A BUCKET.
Dismiss
This button stops recording and monitoring and closes
the record window.
Once you have selected the filename, frequency, mic level,
data format, comment and gain, you are ready to record. To
listen in on the audio that will be recorded you can click
on the Monitor button. This will direct all the audio
received from the audio input jack to be played on the
speaker. When you're ready to record, click on the Record
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button. All the audio received from the audio input jack
will now be recorded into the file. The recording will con-
tinue until you click on the Record button again or click on
the Dismiss button. NOTE: Audio data can accumulate very
rapidly, especially at high sampling rates, resulting in
large files.
BUCKETS
The NCDaudio service provides the capability to create
server resident sound objects called buckets. audemo allows
the user to create buckets, record into them, play from
them, load them with data from a file and dump their con-
tents into a file. Note that buckets created by audemo are
destroyed when audemo is terminated. These options are
available when you bring up the buckets window by clicking
on the Buckets button in the main window. The buckets win-
dows is divided into two areas:
o A collection of command buttons.
o A table of buckets currently accessible. This table
contains the following columns:
Description
The text description.
Duration
The duration of the audio data in seconds.
Tracks
The number of tracks of audio data.
Frequency
The frequency at which the audio data was sampled.
Format
A code letter indicating the encoding format of the
audio data. A key to the format code letters can be
displayed by clicking on the Format Key button.
Access
A combination of code letters indicating the access
mode of the bucket. A key to the access code
letters can be displayed by clicking on the Access
Key button.
CREATING A BUCKET FROM A FILE
To create a bucket from from an audio data file, select the
filename from the list of files in the file window then
click the Load button in the buckets window. The first line
of the buckets table should now contain the information
about the newly created bucket.
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PLAYING FROM A BUCKET
To play a bucket, select the bucket you wish to play by
clicking on it's information in the buckets table. The
entry you click on should be highlighted. Then click on the
Play button in the buckets window. A shortcut for playing
from a bucket is to double-click on the bucket information.
This will select the bucket and start playing from it. To
stop the playing of a bucket, click on the highlighted Play
button in the buckets window. The level meters and volume
level can be controlled in the same way as when playing from
a file.
RECORDING TO A BUCKET
To record into a new bucket, click on the Record button in
the buckets window. This will bring up the record window.
This record window is the same as the one used for recording
to files. Instead of specifying a filename, in the Max
Duration field, enter the maximum duration (in seconds) of
data that the bucket is to hold. Clicking on the Read Only
button will prevent other applications from writing into or
destroying the bucket. The frequency, mic level, format and
comment are used in the same way as when recording to files.
Once all of the fields are set appropriately, click the New
Buckett button. This will create a new bucket according to
the specifications given. The first line of the buckets
table should now contain the information about the newly
created bucket. To begin recording into the bucket, select
the bucket by clicking on it's information in the buckets
table. Then click the Record button in the record window.
All the audio received from the audio input jack will now be
recorded into the bucket. The recording will continue until
you click on the Record button again, click on the Dismiss
or the bucket is filled. The Gain slider and the Monitor
button operate the same as when recording to a file.
SAVING A BUCKET TO A FILE
To save a bucket to a file, first select the bucket by
clicking on it's information in the buckets table. Then
click on the Save button in the buckets window. A dialog
box will pop up prompting you for the name of the file in
which to save the bucket data. audemo will automatically
append '.snd' to the given filename. If no path is given in
the filename, the file will be created in the current direc-
tory. Clicking on Ok or pressing the RETURN key will cause
the file to be created and the data from the bucket to be
written to the file.
DELETING A BUCKET
To delete a bucket, first select the bucket by clicking on
it's information in the buckets table. Then click on the
Delete button in the buckets window. If the audemo has the
appropriate access permissions for the bucket, the bucket
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will be deleted and it's information will be removed from
the bucket table.
EXITING AUDEMO
Clicking on the Quit button will cause audemo to exit, stop-
ping any playing or recording operations and destroying any
buckets that were created.
COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
-audio servername
This option specifies the NCDaudio server to which
audemo should connect.
directory
The directory name that audemo will use to build the
list of selectable file names. When directory is
not specified on the command line, the current work-
ing directory is used.
EXAMPLES
In the following example, in a TCP/IP network, mcxterm is
the name of the desktop machine running the audio server.
The default port is 8000 and sound files are located in
~/snd:
audemo -audio tcp/mcxterm:8000 ~/snd
In the following example, the shortened form of the audio
server name is used and sound files from the current working
directory will be used:
audemo -audio mcxterm:0
ENVIRONMENT
In addition to the standard toolkit environment variables,
the following environment variables are used by audemo:
AUDIOSERVER
This variable specifies the default audio server to
contact if -audio is not specified on the command
line. If this variable is not set and the -audio is
not specified on the command line, audemo will
attempt to connect to the audio server running on
the X Window System display.
SEE ALSO
ncdaudio(1), auplay(1), autool(1), X(1)
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1993 Network Computing Devices, Inc.
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AUTHOR
Greg Renda, Network Computing Devices, Inc.
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