Sound-Cards Software Patrick Horne. Introduction What is a sound card Basic History of Soundcards What is Streaming Audio how is it used in software What.

Sound-Cards Software

Patrick Horne

Introduction

• What is a sound card• Basic History of

Soundcards• What is Streaming Audio

how is it used in software • What are the different

software solutions for sound card– Basic Intro to curbase

• Programming for soundcards in .NET

• Conclusion

What is a sound card

A sound card is a device which allows a computer system to record and/or play sounds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sblive%21.jpg

History of Soundcards / Software

• 1974 - Lynne Wilmslow• 1982 -

TRS-80/Spectrum SoundCard – Published in Practical Computing (Lyndsay Robinson)

History of Soundcard / Software

•1984 - Spectrum Computer add on made by Datel.•Analogue to digital converter, 8 bit, low cost

Ferranti ZN427/ 449Ferranti ZN427/ 449

What Can a Modern Sound Card do?

• Sound Cards can deal with– MIDI – WAV

Some can also deal with

– Compressed Sounds – MP3, WMA

Categories of Music Software

• Drives• Music Manipulates

– Curbase• Players

– Windows Media Player– WinAmp– Real Player

• Burners Software– Create your own Music

CD

Software: Streaming Audio

• Streaming Audio– Allows continuous

playback of sounds without the need to download the whole file before you begin.

– Really took off since broadband emerged.

– Concept of VOIP.

How does Streaming Audio Work

BufferBrowser

HTTP ServerBrowser makes HTTP RequestTo Server forStreaming File

Sends text fileWith link to Audio server

Opens upStreaming software

StreamingServer

Decode Compressed data

PlaySound Winmm.dll(memory address)

Soundcard

Software: Curbase

• Multi Track Recording– Play on different

tracks at the same time.

Software: Curbase

•Change Mixing levels:-•By tone, so you can cut out particular noisy sounds. •Sounds can be separated in to the basic frequencies. •By removing high or low frequencies we can improve sound recording

Software: Curbase

• Sound Fonts– MIDI files work by:-

• Using a formula which synthesises the sound itself or modify pre-existing samples.

Or• prerecording sounds

for example “C Piano”, “D Piano”

Sound fonts allow you to swap these samples.

Software: Curbase

– Virtual Instruments and plugin effects

– Allows you to import extra instruments

Mute button

Mute

Mute All

Record ButtonStopLoop Tempo

Allow jump to sections

Element on the track

Lets you make a selection

Lets youCut apart the Track - Splicing

Glue lets you stick Bit of track together

Lets You selectA empty track

This allows you to control the width of what you are Chopping or if you create parts

Mute button

RightClick on to a context menu

Go to view -> Edit using different modes

Edit the bit you recorded

Allows you to fine tune your MIDI recordings

Allows individual changes on track

Same type of changing facilities

Each Represents a note being played

Software: CD Burners

• After you have finished your manipulation– Drag and drop the files to the CD.– CD Disc Burn the files as WAV files tracks so that it

can be read by the CD as music tracks.– DeepBurner

Developing Applications In Windows

• Since Windows 3.1, Windows has provided:-– SPlaysound(“Filename”) Winmm.dll library for

sending files to the soundcard.• With Windows Visco which is being developed:-

– Manipulation of sound will be much easier.• Give much better control as sounds can be

changed on the windows side rather than using programming.

Imports System Imports System.DiagnosticsImports System.IO Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

Public Class Sounds <Flags()> _ Public Enum PlaySoundFlags

SND_SYNC = 0 SND_ASYNC = 1 SND_FILENAME = &H20000 SND_RESOURCE = &H40004

End Enum

Private Declare Function PlaySound Lib "winmm.dll"

(ByVal fileName As String, ByVal hmod As IntPtr, ByVal flags As PlaySoundFlags) As Integer

Programming for Soundcards

Programming for Soundcards

Public Shared Sub Play(ByVal fileName As String) Try PlaySound(fileName, IntPtr.Zero, PlaySoundFlags.SND_FILENAME Or _ PlaySoundFlags.SND_ASYNC)

Catch

Debug.WriteLine("Can't play sound file")

End Try End Class

Programming for Soundcards

Public Class ConsoleStart

Sub Main()

Public Sub Main()

Sounds.Play(“helloworld.wav”)

End Sub

End Sub

End Class

Conclusion

• We have looked at the history of soundcards

• We have looked at several different soundcard software solutions

• Looked at programming soundcards

• For slide notes http://heapey.f2s.com

References

• research.microsoft.com/users/lyn/soundcardhistory.ppt • http://www.developer.com/net/vb/article.php/

10926_3357131_2• http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/nextcolor/

sound.jpg

Any Questions