Developing and Using Snd: Editing Sound Under Linux, Part Two
by Dave Phillips10/18/2001
Editor's note: In part one of this two-part series on sound editing under Linux, Dave Phillips showed us how to move over from Windows-based Cool Edit to Linux-based Snd. He compared the two software packages, then discussed the installation and configuration of Snd. Now, in part two, Dave walks you through a Snd tutorial and shows you some advanced sound-editing techniques including batch processing.
A brief tutorial for Snd
Now that you're familiar with the basic features of the Snd package for sound editing on Linux, let me walk you through some of the techniques for using this tool. Before beginning this tutorial, you should load the following Scheme files into Snd. These files are included with the Snd source package:
snd-motif.scm |
Provides Motif GUI components (sliders, buttons, entry boxes) |
examp.scm |
Various examples |
extensions.scm |
Various extensions |
dsp.scm |
Some DSP code |
draw.scm |
Drawing routines |
env.scm |
Envelope-specific code |
enved.scm |
Envelope editing routines |
marks.scm |
Mark-related procedures |
mix.scm |
Routines for mixing soundfiles |
moog.scm |
The Moog filter code |
popup.scm |
Provides various pop-up menus |
rubber.scm |
Code to stretch/contract sound |
The following files are my own additions (see the Resources at the end of this article):
special-menu.scm |
Adds a special menu to the main menu bar |
my_backgrounds.scm |
Some background pixmaps |
marks-menu.scm |
Adds a menu for mark processes |
new-effects.scm |
Adds an expanded effects menu |
panic.scm |
Adds a panic menu for stopping Snd processes |
misc.scm |
Includes all of these files and some miscellaneous code |
You could add an -l flag at the command prompt for each one of these files but your command string would quickly grow unwieldy (and your wrists would tire). Fortunately you can simply include all of them in a single file, as seen in the misc.scm file. Download the customization package listed in the Resources for this article, edit misc.scm to reflect your path to the Scheme files packaged with the Snd sources and the new extension files, then launch the Snd with this command string:
snd -l misc.scm foo.wav
You must specify the complete path to misc.scm. Loading the sound file is optional.
You can, of course, add new sound files via the File/Open dialog box at any time. The customization package adds some nice features to the dialog, including buttons for toggling a sound files-only listing and for playing the selected file. Multichannel sound files are listed in different colors, and the dialog displays useful information about the selected file. [Figure 1]
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