Computer Graphics Survey

Sound Recording

Using SoundEdit 2.0 on MacOS Computers

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Before beginning the project

Read theinformation that pertains specifically to the way the ACG Lab operates. This section of the directions may not apply if you work on the project elsewhere.


Tutorial Goals


Sound contents

  1. Ambience noises and/or background music.
  2. Sound hits synchronized to specific events in the animation.

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Sound recording

  1. Launch the SoundEdit application, found in the Sound folder on the hard drive.
    the SoundEdit application icon
  2. Choose the command Apple menu-->Control Panels-->Monitors and Sound. In the dialog, click on the Sound button at the top. Choose your sound source from the Sound Monitoring Source menu (close the dialog when done):
  3. If you selected CD, use the Apple CD Audio Player (in the Apple menu) to select a track for playback.
    selecting an audio track in the Apple CD player
  4. Use the Sound Format command in the Modify menu to choose 8 bits for the Sample Size, and the lowest one of the Rates marked with a microphone icon (there may be only one such rate on some machines). Make sure to leave Compression turned off (just as we did for our scanned images, we don't want to reduce the recording's quality just yet, before effects and further compression are applied).
    choosing a hardware-supported sampling rate
  5. Use the Ruler Units command in the View menu to choose Frames as the unit. In the field that appears next to Frames, enter the frame rate you selected in Director for your animation.
    setting ruler options to match animation frame rate
    Unless you made changes to the default settings (using Director's Control palette), your animation's frame rate is likely 15 fps (frames per second).
  6. If necessary, use the Window menu to display the Levels palette. You may also have to expand the palette (clicking on its zoom box) to see the control sliders (as shown in the picture below). Start your sound source (or rehearse talking into the microphone), and adjust the recording sliders (indicated by the microphone icon) for the best levels: loud enough to show many green bars in the meter, but not so loud that yellow and red bars appear. In the example pictured here, the left channel (topmost in the display) is set too loud, while the right channel is too soft.
    sound check in Levels palette
  7. Press the record button when your sound source is properly cued up.
    record button pressed
  8. Press the Stop button when done recording.
    stop button pressed
  9. A waveform graph representing the newly recorded sound will appear in the document window.
    a newly recorded sound
  10. If the computer you used did not support a low enough sample rate, the file will be quite large. While the window with your recording is active, choose again Modify-->Sound Format (this will now apply to the existing sound data). Choose 8 bits, 11.025 kHz, compression 'None', then click 'OK' to downsample the recording.
  11. Use the Save command in the File menu, choose Audio IFF as the file format. The filename can be anything you want, since the sound recordings will not end up on the web server directly.
    saving as an AIFF file

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Sound cleanup

  1. Adjust the waveform display (using the slider at the bottom of the document window) to better see the parts you are interested in:
  2. Click in the waveform display, and drag to highlight the portion of the sound that you want to clean up.
  3. Verify that the selection matches the sound you want by using Play (in Control menu): only the selected portion of the sound will be heard.
  4. To easily identify and retrieve the selected portion of the sound, create a Label (in the Insert menu). When the highighted default label appears, enter a brief name for the selection.
  5. While the segment is selected, it can be color-coded using the Color submenu of the Modify menu.
    color-coded and labeled waveform
  6. To remove part of a sound, shortening the entire sound:
  7. To remove part of a sound, leaving a pause in its place (the overall length of the sound does not change):
  8. To keep a portion of the sound, while eliminating the rest:
  9. To rearrange the sequence of sounds:
  10. To replicate a sound:

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Notes

Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI)

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Speech

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Information specific to the ACG Lab

On ACG Lab computers, the program SoundEdit is on the hard drive, inside the Sound folder.

After completing this step of the project, make sure to copy your sound recording files to your Zip disks. These files will be needed again for subsequent steps of the project.

Help for SoundEdit is available on the file server, in ACG_DOCS.

The Art Computer Graphics program of Fullerton College offers a class on sound recording and editing, ACG68-Sound for Multimedia. Find it in the ACG Class Schedule.

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This document originally at <http://acg2.fullcoll.edu/FACULTY/CORSI/LEARN/OVERVIEW/OV090MAC/INDEX.HTM>
Copyright 1997-99 by Sandro Corsi.
Last modified 18 OCT 1999.
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