alibaba@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Alexander M. Rosenberg) (03/08/88)
Beyond Dark Castle does something very neat with sound. I used a public domain program called Sound Leech to grab the sounds out of the file BDC Data A. SOUN ID 94 is the music from the title page. It is at 5.5kHz. The problem is, it sounds very tinny and mechanical. BDC does some manipulation to all its sounds when it plays them. Hypothesis: BDC does some sort of fancy overlay of the same sound on itself, so that it sounds fuller, simulating a better sampling rate. BDC does some sort of smooth on the waveform. BDC has some sound data information that I missed. Sound Leech does a bad job of grabbing sound data. Of all those, I can't figure out what is happening. All this investigation makes me wonder why SBS does pruce a sound product, since they no longer do games. Any ideas as to what is happening? Anybody at Apple Sound Engineering have an idea? (They always know whats happening with sound.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~ Alexander M. Rosenberg ~ INTERNET: alibaba@ucscb.ucsc.edu ~ Yoyodyne ~ ~ Crown College, UCSC ~ UUCP:...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!alibaba~ Propulsion ~ ~ Santa Cruz, CA 95064 ~ BITNET:alibaba%ucscb@ucscc.BITNET ~ Systems ~ ~ (408) 426-8869 ~ Disclaimer: Nobody is my employer ~ :-) ~ ~ ~ so nobody cares what I say. ~ ~
jellinghaus-robert@CS.YALE.EDU (Rob Jellinghaus) (03/10/88)
In article <2263@saturn.ucsc.edu> alibaba@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Alexander M. Rosenberg) writes: >Beyond Dark Castle does something very neat with sound. I used a public >domain program called Sound Leech to grab the sounds out of the file >BDC Data A. SOUN ID 94 is the music from the title page. It is at 5.5kHz. >The problem is, it sounds very tinny and mechanical. BDC does some manipulation >to all its sounds when it plays them. In an interview in MacWorld a couple of months ago, the president of Silicon Beach said that all the sounds in Dark Castle would have taken practically a full 800K disk if the authors hadn't come up with some very sophisticated sound compression techniques. That's the story; they pack all the sounds and then unpack them to play them. (They also did some hacking to enable multiple sounds to overlay each other; i.e. the waterfall and the "Ni-ni-ni-ni-ni!" sounds in Shield 3.) I just wish Bill Atkinson would get a clue and grab these routines for Hypercard. Hypercard needs sound compression BAD. >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >~ Alexander M. Rosenberg ~ INTERNET: alibaba@ucscb.ucsc.edu ~ Yoyodyne ~ >~ Crown College, UCSC ~ UUCP:...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!alibaba~ Propulsion ~ >~ Santa Cruz, CA 95064 ~ BITNET:alibaba%ucscb@ucscc.BITNET ~ Systems ~ >~ (408) 426-8869 ~ Disclaimer: Nobody is my employer ~ :-) ~ >~ ~ so nobody cares what I say. ~ ~ God, I wish Silicon Beach hadn't stopped making games... Rob Jellinghaus | "In my heart... I know I'm funny." jellinghaus@yale.edu | ROBERTJ@{yalecs,yalevm}.BITNET | -- Lieutenant (?) Hawke in !..!ihnp4!hsi!yale!jellinghaus | _Good Morning Vietnam_
phd@SPEECH1.CS.CMU.EDU (Paul Dietz) (03/10/88)
In article <2263@saturn.ucsc.edu> alibaba@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Alexander M. Rosenberg) writes: >Beyond Dark Castle does something very neat with sound. I used a public >domain program called Sound Leech to grab the sounds out of the file >BDC Data A. SOUN ID 94 is the music from the title page. It is at 5.5kHz. >The problem is, it sounds very tinny and mechanical. BDC does some manipulation >to all its sounds when it plays them. > >Any ideas as to what is happening? I have a guess with almost zero justification: Different programs use different representations of the waveform. Some use signed integers, others just offset unsigned integers. If you played one assuming it was the other, it would sound pretty much as you described. The other possibility is that you're not getting a reasonable anti-aliasing filter. Could somebody who knows the sound hardware explain how the anti-aliasing filter is choosen for different sampling rates? (I've been wondering if the Mac does ANY anti-aliasing at all...) [Actually, if it doesn't, that might also explain your problem: Maybe BDC upsamples and interpolates at say 22kHz to solve the alaising problem...] Paul H. Dietz ____ ____ Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering / oo \ <_<\\\ Carnegie Mellon University /| \/ |\ \\ \\ -------------------------------------------- | | ( ) | | | ||\\ "If God had meant for penguins to fly, -->--<-- / / |\\\ / he would have given them wings." _________^__^_________/ / / \\\\-
alibaba@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Alexander M. Rosenberg) (03/10/88)
I thought I'd try and follow up here. What I've deterined is that all the BDC sounds are at 5.5kHz, and the so-called "compression" is really a method similar to the way that fat-bits are made (this may be an old fat bits technique, it came from the Byte SmallTalk issue) Each bit it plotted every 9 pixels. it is then replotted one to the right 8 times. (This produces horizonal lines.) then the lines are duplicated vertically eight times. This produces fat bits. I think something similar is occuring with BDC sound technique. The sounds are only every x samples, then "streched" to produce what sounds like a better sampling rate, and a fuller sound. It also explains the tinny echo effect that the sounds sound like when not "uncompressed." Anybody know anything about doing this sort of thing? BDC has good sounding sounds, and it only stores little bits of them.\ BTW, this fat bits technique also explains how sounds can be overlaid. Instead of screching the sound, inserting another one interwoven, will produce the effect of overlapping sounds. I ay have to experiment with this as it seems a good way of storing sound for low-quality playback and overlay. If Apple would ever docuemnt 'snth' resources properly, I would even consider writing a 'snth' to do this, as well as a sound filter to shrink sounds down. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~ Alexander M. Rosenberg ~ INTERNET: alibaba@ucscb.ucsc.edu ~ Yoyodyne ~ ~ Crown College, UCSC ~ UUCP:...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!alibaba~ Propulsion ~ ~ Santa Cruz, CA 95064 ~ BITNET:alibaba%ucscb@ucscc.BITNET ~ Systems ~ ~ (408) 426-8869 ~ Disclaimer: Nobody is my employer ~ :-) ~ ~ ~ so nobody cares what I say. ~ ~
edwards@bgsuvax.UUCP (Bruce Edwards) (03/12/88)
I have seen plenty of applications which allow you to convert
SOUND type files ala FSSD FSSC to SND resources but none that
will take a SND resource and make a SOUND file out of it. I'm
probably missing something simple here. Help me out.
'These are only the shadowlands.' C.S. Lewis
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-----------------------------------------------------------------alibaba@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Alexander M. Rosenberg) (03/14/88)
Yes, you are missing something. Its called "Sound Leech". Last I saw was 0.70. It appears to be a public domain program, and I have only recently obtained it. It will take any resource type and try and make a SoundWave file out of it. This includes types such as, "SMSD" from Crystal Quest, and "SOUN" from Beyond Dark Castle (although BDC appears to do funky things to its sounds). I'll have to check it to see if it is ok to send to the binaries. Other solutions: SoundEdit (part of MacRecorder, from Farallon) will convert sounds from every type to every other type. It handles snd types 1 and 2, SoundWave files (any FSSD FSSC type files), and also does stereo in most formats (type 2 for HyperCard doesn't appear to support stereo.) I highly recommend MacRecorder, and I love mine. (I have no relations with any company or product mentioned here.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~ Alexander M. Rosenberg ~ INTERNET: alibaba@ucscb.ucsc.edu ~ Yoyodyne ~ ~ Crown College, UCSC ~ UUCP:...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!alibaba~ Propulsion ~ ~ Santa Cruz, CA 95064 ~ BITNET:alibaba%ucscb@ucscc.BITNET ~ Systems ~ ~ (408) 426-8869 ~ Disclaimer: Nobody is my employer ~ :-) ~ ~ ~ so nobody cares what I say. ~ ~