rgonzal@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Ralph Gonzalez) (06/11/91)
I'm not much of an in-depth Toolbox person, but I'd appreciate if someone could help me sort this out... I recently got the freeware SID (Sound Input Device) disk from Educorp, which describes hardware and C routines for recording sound samples and manipulating them. It turns out that Cedar Technology (617-623-3563) sells a kit for $45 to build the microphone + A/D converter hardware (with a few changes from SID's design), which I assume is reasonable compared with commercial offerings(?). What I want to know, however, is whether Apple's recent Sound Input Manager (new Toolbox routines?) makes SID redundant. In any case, are these approaches compatible in terms of the format with which sounds are stored to disk for editing? I read recently that Farallon has had to modify their SoundEdit utility to be compatible with the Sound Input Manager routines... Thanks for any help you can give me! Incidentally, the thing I want to do is to write routines which perform Fast Fourier Transform analysis on the sound samples, for measuring frequency response, etc. Regards, Ralph (rgonzal@elbereth.rutgers.edu)
ldo@waikato.ac.nz (Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Waikato University) (06/14/91)
In article <Jun.11.09.33.44.1991.19521@elbereth.rutgers.edu>, rgonzal@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Ralph Gonzalez) writes: > What I want to know, however, is whether Apple's recent Sound Input > Manager (new Toolbox routines?) makes SID redundant. In any case, are > these approaches compatible in terms of the format with which sounds > are stored to disk for editing? Apple's Sound Input Manager isn't there to make any *hardware* redundant, it's there to provide a consistent *software* interface to whatever hardware you may have. All you need is a sound input driver to interface between your particular hardware and the Sound Input Manager. Apple includes a driver for the built-in hardware on the LC and IIsi, and Farallon supply one for use with their MacRecorder. The end result is that you can use both these kinds of hardware with any application that supports the Sound Input Manager, such as the HyperCard audio palette. I don't know anything about SID, so I don't know if it feeds its data through the serial port the same way Farallon's MacRecorder does. If that is the case, then Farallon's MacRecorder Driver should work with the SID hardware. Of course, whether Farallon *like* the thought of you using their software with somebody else's hardware, is another matter... > I read recently that Farallon has had to modify their SoundEdit > utility to be compatible with the Sound Input Manager routines... Well, they brought out SoundEdit 2.0.3 to support the built-in hardware on the LC and IIsi, and to fix some odd problems with using the MacRecorder under System 6.0.7. SoundEdit 2.0.3 does use the Sound Input Manager when recording from the built-in mike on the LC and IIsi, but the thing I don't like is that it opens the "Built-In" hardware device explicitly by name, rather than just opening the default input device that you have selected in the Sound control panel. Now, I concede that it might as well drive an attached MacRecorder directly, rather than forcing you to go via the Sound Input Manager, but this also means that you can't easily use SoundEdit with other "fourth-party" (non-Apple, non-Farallon) input hardware. I complained about this to Farallon, pointing out how it would appear to contravene Apple's guidelines etc etc. When I succeeded in making them understand what the problem was, they said that they did it to avoid the "support problems" from having to deal with other people's hardware. Lawrence D'Oliveiro fone: +64-71-562-889 Computer Services Dept fax: +64-71-384-066 University of Waikato electric mail: ldo@waikato.ac.nz Hamilton, New Zealand 37^ 47' 26" S, 175^ 19' 7" E, GMT+12:00 Any opinions the author has expressed in this posting are sacred to Epimetheus, the Greek god of hindsight.