Making WAV files and viewing them.

Keith Hilton · Post by **Keith Hilton** » 22 Jan 2000 7:35 am

Bobby Lee mentioned making WAV files and viewing them on the computer. I would like to know a lot more about this. Even though I make electronic stuff, when it comes to the computer I'm stupid. I've only had my computer a short time and am still learning.
I have no idea how to hook my guitar to my computer. Form member Mylos suggested to me Syntrillium.com This looks like a good place to start. Does anyone have any suggestions. HELP!

------------------

Graham · Post by **Graham** » 22 Jan 2000 8:03 am

Keith:
Get yourself a good .wav editing program. The shareware version of CoolEdit should do. Instead of plugging your guitar into your soundcard, you may want to try using a mic on your amp.
Double click on the yellow speaker on your taskbar in bottom right corner. In the box that opens, click on "Options", then "Properties" then on the next box, "Recording". When this opens, make sure the "Microphone" is selected. Set the volume slider than try recording.
Open Cooledit, click on file, than new, select sampling rate, than OK.
Now click on record button and start playing.
When done you can play it back or save it to your harddrive. Click file, save as, give it a name and pick the directory you want to save it to then click "Save".

------------------
Rebel™
ICQ 614585

JB Arnold · Post by **JB Arnold** » 22 Jan 2000 8:20 am

Keith
I'd advise against plugging right into the computer as well. But you don't really need any new software-If you've got windows 95 or 98 you have a sound recorder built into it. Look under accessories and then entertainment, should be a file called sound recorder. If you have no Cooledit or anything, I'd record to a cassette or something, then plug that into my sound card. The sound record function has controls just like a tape player, and if all you want to do is get sounds into the computer, that should be fine.
If you have the gear you can record to a digital recorder, save it as a wav file and then just copy it to your computer. That's what I do, but only because I have the gear.
You can get cords that will plug you right into you computer, but they don't sound very good.

John

------------------
Better Late than Never!
www.johnbarnold.com/pedalsteel

[This message was edited by JB Arnold on 22 January 2000 at 08:24 AM.]

Roy Thomson · Post by **Roy Thomson** » 22 Jan 2000 9:07 am

I am confused by the caption on this thread.

It seems to be referring to video while the responses are audio related.

Graham · Post by **Graham** » 22 Jan 2000 9:40 am

Roy:
Just a misplay on words, I think. Wav files are Audio and you can view them but all you see is a recorded line. Much better to listen to them.

------------------
Rebel™
ICQ 614585

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 22 Jan 2000 10:02 am

Roy--you can get a sort of oscilloscope readout that shows the sound wave. It's real useful for editing clips or making loops.

Rick Tyson · Post by **Rick Tyson** » 22 Jan 2000 10:04 am

Keith
Also somthing you will want to look into is a WAVE file compression program such as Audioaction Production Studio. This is a shareware program you can download from various sites on the Web. I downloaded it from WWW.ZDTV.COM. Its free for 30 days & if ya want to keep it, it cost around $50 . This program allows you to take a Wave file and compress it. Example, I compressed a 1,500,000 bite wave down to 14,000 bites without any noticable loss of clarity or quality

This program is a must for wave files unless you have zillions of bites of space on your hard drive.
A 10 or 12 second wave file amounts to about a million bites of space required on the old hard drive

Rick

------------------
www.greenapple.com/~ace1
Forum Scrapbook Members Pictures

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 22 Jan 2000 4:53 pm

For editing, looping, and timing, a computer is OK. But when it comes to studying and interpreting a waveform, a computer is a merely a "toy". The cheapest O-Scope is FAR more versatile and accurate.

Ken Lang · Post by **Ken Lang** » 22 Jan 2000 5:28 pm

In all honesty, what am I missing here? I have a cakewalk song with 37 tracks. 28 are midi, the other 9 are wav files although most of the the wav tracks are partial and not full tracks. The file size is 56KB. I haven't seen the 1 meg per 10 or 20 secs I hear about. I'll admit I've been at it only a few months and have much to learn. My question, again in all honesty, is the often quoted huge file size an urban myth, or am I due for a big learning curve?

Keith Hilton · Post by **Keith Hilton** » 22 Jan 2000 10:17 pm

Donny, I always thought like you. Bobby Lee came on and talked like I should be using WAV files in stead of my dual trace O-SCOPE.
I am the same as stupid when it comes to this dern computer! I know there are programs for hooking a O-SCOPE to a computer.
Bobby Lee probably knows exactly what he is talking about. I wish he would come on. Will these WAV files let you look at a signal and freeze it? For example ,a dobro signal goes up and flattens out. Then on the end it drops off pretty quick, with a little jerk. The sound makes a exact electronic picture. Maybe Bobby thought I was talking about something else? I hope he don't come on and jump on me for being so stupid!

------------------
[This message was edited by Keith Hilton on 22 January 2000 at 10:19 PM.]

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 23 Jan 2000 4:34 am

Check it out, guys--we are talking about two different things.
This is a screen shot of my program.
It shows the Jimmy Day Farewell Party clip, a minute long, in its entirety. This is not about capturing the wave shape, but rather....well I'm not exactly sure but it's not about the analyzing of the sound. You can, however, zoom in on a section and join two waves at just the right point to make it seamless.
Anyway, I hope this clears this up a little.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 23 Jan 2000 4:43 am

I've been talking about GoldWave, recently, and suggest you try it too. It is available for downloading as a shareware program and does more than a lot of the shareware (and some commercial) programs. And if you decide to buy it, it comes out to a little less than $40 US ($60 canadian). A good price for the features.

You can view the entire .wav waveform or you can expand it out to look at only one small segment. It will take an entire song, as some will only take a small wav clip.

The one that comes with Win98 is very limited.

If you want to capture a signal and analyze it, and you don't have a fancy Tektronix Storage scope then one of the computer programs is the next best thing.

GoldWave can be downloaded from several download sites and the author's site. Here's the link to the site.

http://www.goldwave.com

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 23 Jan 2000 8:41 am

The computer wave forms only represent volume. They do not represent overtone content unless you get into the more esoteric (and expensive) software.

Bob

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 23 Jan 2000 10:29 am

Okay guys, maybe I'm the ignorant one here. What do you see on a oscilloscope that you don't see in a WAV editor?

Jon, your screen shot is zoomed way out. When you zoom in you see something very much like a scope, I think:

Maybe you scope jockeys can tell me what I'm missing.

------------------
Bobby Lee

www.b0b.com/products
Sierra Session S-12 E9th, Speedy West D-10, Sierra S-8 Lap

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 23 Jan 2000 10:33 am

Here's a link to the sound (I hope this works):

www.b0b.com/include/House_Doorbell.wav

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 23 Jan 2000 10:40 am

Wow, it sounds just like it looks!

I'll be right back--I think there's someone at the doo.....D'oh!!

I am confused now as to what's what. My screen shot is of an entire 1 minute sound file so it really isn't a readout of a sound wave. But if I zoomed in on 1 second it would indeed look like your wave, b0b, and now I'm not sure if that is what an o-scope shows or not.[This message was edited by Jon Light on 23 January 2000 at 10:42 AM.]

Keith Hilton · Post by **Keith Hilton** » 23 Jan 2000 3:38 pm

Bobby, it looks to me like you are getting real close to what I see on a O-Scope. With this program you may be able to do some really good things. Why I'm so interested in this is because you can "SEE" your sound and what is happening. It gets everything out of the relm of magic, and old wife's tales. You can see if something has more or less frequency. A lot of work was done in the area of re-creating sounds of different instruments, to build early synthesizers in the 1960's. If you search the library, all the electronic magazines of the time were full of this kind of stuff. I'm like most of you--I do not like a lot of effects. I like straight steel. Still it is nice to see what a phaze shifter, a delay, or even a reverb really does to the electronic picture.
What I was most interested in is compairing the Dobro signal to the Steel signal. Seeing what alterations would make the steel signal like the Dobro signal--without using a wooden bar!

------------------
[This message was edited by Keith Hilton on 23 January 2000 at 05:55 PM.]

Keith Hilton · Post by **Keith Hilton** » 23 Jan 2000 5:54 pm

Bobby, I tried to down load the link you suggested. I couldn't get it to download. It said, "Always ask before you down load". It had a picture of a computer with a lock. Any suggestions?

------------------

Dave Van Allen · Post by **Dave Van Allen** » 23 Jan 2000 6:32 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>:
In all honesty, what am I missing here? I have a cakewalk song with 37 tracks. 28 are midi, the other 9 are wav files although most of the the wav tracks are partial and not full tracks. The file size is 56KB. I haven't seen the 1 meg per 10 or 20 secs I hear about. I'll admit I've been at it only a few months and have much to learn. My question, again in all honesty, is the often quoted huge file size an urban myth, or am I due for a big learning curve?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ken- the audio is stored seperately in Cakewalk- if you look inside the folder labled "Wave Data" inside your Cakewalk program folder you will find some VERY large cryptically named files which ARE the audio related to your .wrk files.Cakewalk keeps them seperate for rapidity in acccess and manipulation, treating each audio track as its own entity (at least that's how I understand it)
When you save a combined audio and MIDI Cakewalk file as a "Bundle" or .bun file instead of a .wrk or "Work" THEN you see it all pulled together into a big file with all components included. these can be pretty huge, but if you are sharing files with others, as we have discussed, this is the file format to use- otherwise they will get a file with complete MIDI, but empty audio trax.
.
==========================================
Dave Van Allen :: Steel Guitar / MIDI / Tunesmythe
vanallen@voicenet.com
[This message was edited by Dave Van Allen on 23 January 2000 at 06:36 PM.]