by Mark Lewis
Page 2
by Mark Lewis
Page 2
MM has also incorporated the Microsoft Word 6.0 interface without the time delay. Two toolbars, one for effects and one for other menu functions, now give the user instant access to many of the editing options. Just as in MS Word, the function of the icons can be revealed by simply placing the mouse pointer over the icon in question. The file menu also lists the four most recently opened files, as does MS Word. There are even help buttons available in many function windows. If you are uncertain what a given feature does, clicking the HELP button in the function's window will bring up another window briefly describing the feature.
Aside from the toolbars, more floating palettes have been incorporated into the interface. In version 1, the only floating palette was the transport control which did include access to the most commonly used effects. Now there is a small window containing two level meters: one monitoring the input signal and one representing the amplitude values of the soundfile. Labels and cue points each have their own window. Playback of these points is as simple as double-clicking its name in the respective window.
Version 2 has also included features which cater more to the Cyberspace audiophile (if they ever come into existence). The program now supports fourteen soundfile formats. Among them are AIFF, AIFC, WAV, Quicktime, and now Sun's µlaw. Before version 2, conversion to µlaw was accomplished using µlaw 1.4. Here, an 8-bit Mac SND file at any sampling rate is converted to an 8K, 16 bit µlaw file. Using an 8-bit source file denies you the greater dynamic range and signal-to-noise of a 16-bit file. Since the µlaw file is 16-bit, the source file should be 16-bit as well. Both µlaw 1.4 and SE16 v.2 generate µlaw files of about the same size given the same source file. However, the SE16 v.2 µlaw files sound much cleaner than their µlaw 1.4 counterparts:
[72K .au] 8KHz-16bit file generated from a 11KHz-8bit .snd file using µlaw 1.4
[72K .au] 8KHz-16bit file generated from a 8KHz-16bit .aiff file using SE16 v.2
When converting your soundfiles to a number of different formats, SE16 v.2 also has an automatic batch processor. Here, you can specify a number of soundfiles and convert sample rate, convert bit depth, apply compression, change format, and add naming extensions.
When crunching your soundfiles, SE16 v.2 provides high boost for downsampling and dithering for bit depth reduction. When downsampling, you limit the width of your frequency spectrum. Your highest sampled frequency can only be half the sampling rate or aliasing will occur. At this frequency, the Nyquist frequency, a low pass filter is applied to prevent higher frequencies during recording and to smooth the reconstituted curve during playback. The absence of the higher frequencies makes the soundfile duller. The high boost option will increase the levels of the frequencies just below the Nyquist frequency of the new sample rate, hence brightening the sound.
[198K .aiff | 198K .wav] 11KHz-16bit file downsampled from the above 44KHz-16bit file using SE16 v.1
When reducing bit depth from 16-bit to 8-bit, you are limiting the number of possible amplitude levels from 65536 to 256. Bit reduction is accomplished by either truncation of the lower bits or by rounding.In truncating the lower 8 bits, you lose the low level nuances encoded in the lower bits. Rounding may cause these nuances to be cut out from time to time or introduce other strange ones. When adding dither, a random sequence of numbers is added to the lower bits which will then be truncated. The results of these additions will be carried over into the higher bits, just past the point of truncation. Hence, the nuances of the lower bits will still somewhat be encoded into the higher bits which become the least significant bits after truncation. Although "noise" is introduced into the system, the low level nuances may be preserved in some way.
For the Cyberspace audio engineer, working with limited bandwidth as well as limited finances, SoundEdit 16 version 2 provides the most editing tools for the least amount of money. The automated batch processor as well as multiple file format support saves you a lot of time when generating soundfiles available on the Internet for all platforms. SE16 v.2's open architecture will hopefully provide new tools, such as noise reduction (imagine that), to appease the number of Cyber-audiophiles which will inevitably grow with the increase in Internet bandwidth.
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