soundtrack(1)soundtrack(1)NAMEsoundtrack - multitrack digital audio recorder/editor
SYNOPSISsoundtrack [ -display displayname ] [ filename ]
DESCRIPTION
SoundTrack is a graphical application for recording, editing and
processing up to 32 tracks of audio. SoundTrack can be used to create
multi-element soundtracks for movies, commercials, and web pages. A wide
variety of soundfile formats is supported for import/export and
cut/paste. Also, SoundTrack allows pre-mastering of digital audio tapes
via the export-to-DAT feature.
For more detailed instructions on using soundtrack, access the on-line
help facility via the "Help" menu item on the right side of the main
menubar. Also, please read the soundtrack chapter of the IRIX release
notes for digital media which contains important up-to-date information
on the current release of the program.
SoundTrack provides the following major features:
- Realtime audio recording and playing of up to 32 tracks of audio.
The total number of tracks which can be played back simultaneously
depends on the type of machine the program is running on; generally,
more powerful systems can play back more tracks at once.
- An extensive transport control area includes controls for starting
and stopping record or playback; for placing markers at specific
locations in a project; for enabling looping and selection playback;
and for incrementally increasing or reducing the size of the current
selection.
- Per-track controls for muting, soloing, setting the volume level and
pan position, and selecting the input source. Use of screen area can
be controlled by using the more/less triangle button which
shows/hides the track waveform displays. To conserve screen space,
you may wish to hide tracks which are not being edited currently.
- Cut & paste editing of audio data within soundtrack and between other
digital media applications, such as cdplayer and moviemaker.
- Full support for Adobe Premiere(TM)-compatible plug-in effects.
Plug-ins for fading in and out, parametric equalization, DC offset
correction, echo effects, and volume changes are shipped as part of
the system. See the Audio Plug-Ins section below for brief
descriptions of the standard audio plug-ins.
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- Multi-level Undo/redo for all essential editing, processing, and
track management functions.
- Multiple types of markers and mechanisms for instantly moving to a
desired marker or selecting between ranges of markers.
- DAT pre-mastering using the "File | Export" menu item. Markers will
be used for program and index points.
- The ability to import audio data from virtually any format of sound
file and automatic sample format conversion to the project's current
parameters.
- Some or all of a project can be mixed down (exported) to any of the
soundfile formats supported by the SGI Audiofile Library.
- Movie files can be opened and played back in sync with the audio.
Markers may be inserted into the project at specific frames within
the movie. This allows synchronized "spotting" of sound effects,
dialog or music.
OPTIONS-display displayname
Specifies the X display to use. If none is set, uses the value of
$DISPLAY. If $DISPLAY isn't set, uses ":0". Note that sound will
be played on the host running soundtrack regardless of the display
setting.
filename
specifies the name of a SoundTrack project file.
SOUNDTRACK PROJECTS
SoundTrack stores your work in projects. A project consists of one
master project file and an arbitary number of associated audio files and
waveform decimation files used for graphical display.
The File menu items 'New/Open/Save/Save As' all operate at the project
level. The menu items 'Import/Export' operate on single soundfiles used
for data exchange with other programs.
The name of the master project file is the official top-level project
name, and this is the file you select when you want to open or save a
project. A project file does not contain any audio data. Instead, it
describes the structure of the project and contains the names of
additional files which hold the actual audio data and waveform plotting
information. This architecture allows SoundTrack to manipulate the
project much more quickly and efficiently than storing all of the audio
data in a single file.
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If you want to copy or move a project to a different location, you must
copy both the master project file and all the auxiliary files. To make
this easier, SoundTrack uses the project name as a prefix for all the
associated audio and waveform data files. You can copy a soundtrack
project to another location by typing:
cp projectname* newlocation
where projectname is the name of the project file and newlocation is the
name of the directory to which the project should be copied.
Similarly, to remove all files in a project, type:
rm projectname*
IMPORTING FILES
The 'File | Import' command is used to place existing soundfiles onto
tracks in the form of clips. Before importing the soundfile, set the
insert cursor on a selection of one or more tracks for the destination.
SoundTrack maps each channel of the source file to the next selected
track so that you can edit them independently. For example, if you are
importing a stereo soundfile, you should select two tracks to receive the
incoming clips. The imported audio data will be pasted into the project
at the location specified by the selection.
EXPORTING FILES
The 'File | Export' command is used to mix down the project data into a
single soundfile. You'll need to use this command when you want to
produce a soundfile that is playable by other sound programs that don't
understand the soundtrack project format. Many options are available in
the export dialog box for choosing the soundfile type and sample
parameters such as sample rate, bit width, number of channels and
compression. This allows you to compose your project in a preferred
working format, but save a mixdown to a specific target format.
During export, the project data is is effectively "played" into the
mixdown file. This is important to know, since the settings of the track
parameters (mute/solo/pan/volume) as well as the master volume control
will be used during the process of creating the output file.
SETTING TRACK PARAMETERS
Each track consists of two parts: a track control strip, and an audio
waveform editing area. The track control strip is always visible and
contains the track's name, solo and mute states, volume and pan position
sliders, and the track input source selector.
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To select a track, simply click on the Track's name. The track will
highlight to indicate that it is selected. To deselect a track, shift-
click on the title.
To create a new track, select "Create Track" from the Tracks menu. A new
track will be created after the last selected track (or at the end of all
tracks if no track is selected).
To change the name of a track, either double-click on the title or select
the track and choose "Set Name..." from the Tracks menu.
To change the track's volume, simply click and drag on the track volume
selector. To change a track's pan position, click and drag on the Pan
slider.
The solo ("star") and mute ("speaker") buttons can be used to solo or
mute a track. When a track is soloed, only it and any other soloed
tracks will be audible during playback. This function is useful if you
want to quickly audition a track by itself. The mute button will turn
off a track during playback. It can be used if you don't want to mix the
audio on a particular track in with the rest of the tracks during
playback.
The input selector button is used during recording to specify whether a
track should record the left or right channel of the currently selected
input device.
EDITING
SoundTrack allows the audio waveforms to be selected in one of two ways:
as continous waves or as distinct objects (clips). We refer to the two
methods as linear style and object style.
Linear style provides the traditional point, click & drag approach to
selection as implemented in many word processing applications. To cut a
region of audio data, you just click-and-drag over the region to be cut
and then select 'Edit | Cut'. To paste, click once to set the insertion
point and then choose 'Edit | Paste'. You can shift-click to extend the
selection to another track or to exclude the track). Also note that the
track strip changes color to indicate that the corresponding track
includes the selection. You can create discontiguous selections by
shift-clicking on the track strip to add or remove the track from a
selection.
It is possible to paste fewer tracks of data than you originally cut or
copied. For example, if only a single track contains an insertion
pointer when you select 'Edit | Paste', only the first track on the
clipboard will be pasted. You can extend the insertion point to multiple
tracks by shift-clicking on the track strip. So, if you have three tracks
of data on the clipboard and you want to paste all three, you can click
on the destination track where the first clipboard track will go, and
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then shift-click on two other tracks to specify the destinations for the
remaining tracks on the clipboard. The advantage of this approach is
that you may paste to any three arbitrary tracks, even if they aren't
consecutive.
Object style provides edit selection more like an object-based drawing
program: you select a clip by double-clicking within it's bounding
rectangle. After selection, the clip is drawn inverted to indicate that
it's selected. You can add additional clips to the selection by shift-
clicking on them. This style of selection and editing allows easy
manipulation of whole clips which are spread out among the tracks.
After making a selection (either linear or object style) on one or more
tracks, you may invoke one of the editing commands from the Edit menu or
one of the plug-in modules from the Effects menu.
PLAYBACK
You can start playback either by clicking on the Play button on the
transport or by pressing the Space Bar. If the "Play Selection" button
(the button immediately to the left of the transport) is depressed,
soundtrack will always start playing from the beginning of the current
selection and will stop when either the end of the selection or the end
of the project is reached. If the loop button is depressed, soundtrack
will loop back to the beginning of the selection.
If the "Play Selection" button isn't depressed, SoundTrack will resume
playback at the current play location (indicated by the downwards-facing
arrow which runs along the top of the ruler). You can change the current
playback position by clicking in the playback indicators display area.
If the "Loop" button is depressed but the "Play Selection" button isn't,
SoundTrack will, upon reaching the end of the project, automatically
return to the beginning of project and continue playing.
RECORDING
Use the system Audio Control Panel to select the desired input source for
recording (i.e., microphone or line input). Also set the input level to
an appropriate setting for recording. Remember that if the level is too
low, the signal will be weak and boosting it later with the Normalize or
Volume plug-in will also increase the noise level. If the setting is too
high, the signal will be 'clipped' and sound distorted.
In order to record new clip data onto a track, the track must first be
selected. Either click on the track control strip (the area containing
the name and other controls), or click to set an insert point within the
clip waveform area. Either of these actions will enable recorded data to
be received on the track. You can record on more than one track
simultaneously; simply select multiple tracks by shift-clicking on them.
Set the input channel on each track to be recorded so that track will
receive the correct source channel of data.
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Then, hit the PLAY or RECORD button to start the transport. While
playing, you may hit the master RECORD button in the transport to toggle
recording on or off. To stop recording, you may either hit the transport
RECORD button again or just hit the STOP button. A clip will be created
for each period that recording was enabled.
AUDIO PLUG-INS
Audio Plug-Ins are accessed from the "Effects" menu. The following
plug-ins are shipped as standard with the current release. Additional
plug-ins may be available from other vendors and will show up in this
menu after installation.
Echo Plug-In
The echo plug-in adds a repeating echo effect to the selected area.
There are two time parameters (in seconds) that can be adjusted to
produce different effects. The Delay Time sets the amount of time
between successive echo impulses, while the Reverberation Time sets the
amount of time it will take for the echo to decay to -60 dB.
The Preview button allows the user to audition the resulting echo effect
before committing with the OK button. Note: you must turn off the
Preview button before adjusting the parameters again.
Fade In/Out Plug-In
These modules perform simple linear fades on the selected area, causing
the signal amplitude to gradually increase from or decrease to zero.
Normalize Plug-In
This plug-in can help to adjust the level of signals that were recorded
very low. It rescales the amplitude of the audio samples to fit the full
dynamic range. Note, however, that raising the level of the signal will
also bring up the volume of any noise in the original recording. If the
noise level is unacceptable, you may need to re-record the signal with a
higher input level for better signal-to-noise ratio.
Parametric Equalizer Plug-In
This plug-in consists of an equalizer module which can be used to boost
or cut three bands of frequencies by -20dB to +15dB. Each band is made
up of a second-order parametric filter whose bandwidth, center frequency,
and gain/attenuation can be adjusted by the user to achieve various
effects. While the parameters are being changed, the corresponding
frequency response curves are plotted to help visualize the filter
effect.
Use this plug-in to compensate for level differences that are restricted
to specific frequency areas of the signal, such as "bass" (low
frequencies from app. 20 - 400 Hz) or "treble" (higher frequencies from
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app. 8 - 16 kHz) for example.
The Preview button allows the user to audition the resulting equalization
effect before committing with the OK button.
Remove DC Offset Plug-In
This plug-in removes unwanted DC offset components from the selection
when the audio signal is not centered around zero. These artifacts are
sometimes produced by recording equipment and should be removed in order
to re-center the waveform.
Volume Plug-In
This plug-in increases or decreases the volume of the selection by a
given decibel (dB) value. Unlike the Parametric EQ, the change of volume
will affect all frequency bands at once. The module allows a maximum
change of 8.5 dB which corresponds to the approximate doubling or halving
of the perceived loudness.
SEE ALSOapanel(1), cdplayer(1), datplayer(1),
moviemaker(1), mediarecorder(1), sfinfo(1), mediaconvert(1)
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