EXP Computer AudioDrive User Manual
Audio Applications
USER GUIDE
Version 3.0
August, 1994
ESS Technology, Inc.
46107 Landing Parkway
Fremont, California 94538
Copyright 1994 by ESS Technology, Inc.
All rights reserved.
The contents of this manual and the associated Audio
Applications software are the property of ESS
Technology, Inc. For additional copies of the
software, please contact ESS Technology, Inc.
AudioDrive is a trademark of ESS Technology, Inc.
Microsoft, MS-DOS, Windows, and the Windows
Sound System are registered trademarks of
Microsoft Corporation.
Audio Applications 3.0 User Guide
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Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................... 1
Features of the Audio Applications........................................................ 1
Audio Applications Overview................................................................ 2
Chapter 2: Installation............................................................................. 3
Introduction.......................................................................................... 3
Starting the Setup Program................................................................... 3
Installing the AudioDrive Driver and Applications................................. 4
Changing Audio Boards........................................................................ 11
Chapter 3: The Audio Recorder.............................................................. 12
Introduction.......................................................................................... 12
Starting the Audio Recorder.................................................................. 13
Audio Recorder Menu Commands......................................................... 14
The Audio Recorder Toolbar .............................................................. 19
Making a Recording..............................................................................20
Playing an Audio File ............................................................................22
Editing an Audio File ............................................................................ 24
Changing the Waveform with Effects Commands ..................................27
Adding Sound to a Document: Drag and Drop...................................... 28
Changing an Audio File's Properties ......................................................29
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Chapter 4: The Recording Control......................................................... 31
Introduction.......................................................................................... 31
Starting the Recording Control.............................................................. 31
Recording Control Menu Commands..................................................... 33
Chapter 5: The Volume Control.............................................................. 34
Introduction.......................................................................................... 34
Starting the Volume Control ................................................................. 34
The Volume Control Options Menu ...................................................... 36
Chapter 6: The Mixer..............................................................................37
Introduction.......................................................................................... 37
Starting the Mixer................................................................................. 37
Mixer Menu Commands........................................................................39
Chapter 7: The Extended Recorder........................................................ 40
Introduction.......................................................................................... 40
Starting the Extended Recorder............................................................. 41
Extended Recorder Menu Commands.................................................... 42
The Extended Recorder Toolbar .......................................................... 44
Making a Recording..............................................................................45
Playing an Audio File ............................................................................46
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Chapter 8: The Audio Clip Library........................................................47
Introduction.......................................................................................... 47
Starting the Audio Clip Library ............................................................. 47
Audio Clip Library Menu Commands.................................................... 53
Chapter 9: The Talking Calculator.........................................................55
Introduction.......................................................................................... 55
Starting the Talking Calculator.............................................................. 55
Performing Calculations........................................................................ 56
Calculator Functions ............................................................................. 57
Using Calculator Memory ..................................................................... 58
Regulating the Announcements ............................................................. 59
The Help Menu..................................................................................... 60
Chapter 10: The Talking Clock............................................................... 61
Introduction.......................................................................................... 61
Starting the Talking Clock..................................................................... 61
Positioning the Clock............................................................................ 62
Announcing the Time............................................................................ 62
Setting the Clock................................................................................... 63
The Help Menu..................................................................................... 65
Chapter 11: The Chime........................................................................... 66
Introduction.......................................................................................... 66
Starting the Chime ................................................................................ 66
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Setting the Chime .................................................................................. 67
The Help Menu..................................................................................... 67
Chapter 12: The Audio Reminder........................................................... 68
Introduction.......................................................................................... 68
Starting the Audio Reminder................................................................. 68
Setting an Alarm ...................................................................................69
Audio Reminder Menu Commands........................................................ 72
Chapter 13: The Stopwatch..................................................................... 73
Introduction.......................................................................................... 73
Starting the Stopwatch.......................................................................... 73
Operating the Stopwatch....................................................................... 74
Controling the Appearance of the Stopwatch......................................... 74
The Help Menu..................................................................................... 75
Chapter 14: The Timer............................................................................ 76
Introduction.......................................................................................... 76
Starting the Timer................................................................................. 76
Setting the Timer .................................................................................. 77
Operating the Timer.............................................................................. 78
Controling the Appearance of the Timer................................................ 79
The Help Menu..................................................................................... 80
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1: Introduction
The Audio Applications enable you to record, store, and play back voice,
music, and other sound on your PC. These applications are designed to
enhance communication and improve productivity by incorporating audio into
your daily use of the computer.
The Audio Applications take full advantage of the capabilities of the
AudioDrive family of audio chips (ES488, ES1488, and ES688).
The ES488 and ES1488 provide for the recording and play back of
monophonic audio files. The ES688 provides stereo capabilities and a fivechannel mixer. See your hardware manual for a description of your
computer's capabilities.
Features of the Audio Applications
The Audio Applications:
• Are compatible with Microsoft Windows 3.1.
• Comply with Windows 3.1 Object Linking and Embedding (OLE)
requirements.
• Enable you to add, edit and update voice annotations in OLE-compliant
Windows applications such as WordPerfect, Word, Excel, and Lotus 123.
• Record and play audio files in the PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) format,
compatible with Windows 3.1 and other sound cards that use this format.
• Are compatible with the Microsoft Windows Sound Recorder for
recording and play back.
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Audio Applications Overview
• The Audio Recorder records, compresses, stores and plays voice, music,
and other sound in .WAV and .AUD formats.
• The Recording Control regulates the recording level and stereo balance
of multiple sources during recording.
• The Volume Control regulates the volume and stereo balance of sound
during playback.
• The Mixer combines signals from multiple sources during playback.
• The Extended Recorder records, compresses, and stores audio files
directly to the hard disk, giving you longer recording times.
• The Audio Clip Library enables you to organize your audio files in
folders. It includes a variety of audio files under the folders music,
phrases and sounds.
• The Talking Calculator announces numbers entered, operation executed
and resulting answers.
• The Talking Clock announces the time on request.
• The Chime provides a choice of audio announcements at 15, 30 or 60
minute intervals.
• The Audio Reminder features two alarms. The time these alarms go off
can be set and the audio announcement of your choice can be selected.
• The Stopwatch makes audio announcements for time elapsed.
• The Timer makes audio announcements for time remaining.
The Windows driver is installed when you run the Setup program. The next
chapter describes the installation process.
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2: Installation
Introduction
The Setup program provides an easy way for you to install the AudioDrive
driver and applications.
Starting the Setup Program
First-time installation:
1. Start Windows 3.1 or higher.
2. In Program Manager, choose Run from the File menu.
3. Place Disk 1 in a floppy drive. In the Run dialog box, type the letter of
the drive and setup (for example B:\setup), then click the OK button.
The first AudioDrive Setup window appears.
Changing the setup after Audio Applications are installed:
1. Start Windows and open the Audio Applications program group.
2. Double-click the Setup icon, or select it and press the Enter key.
The first AudioDrive Setup window appears.
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Installing the AudioDrive Driver and Applications
Here is the first AudioDrive Setup window:
Note the instructions, then click Continue to go on, or Exit to leave Setup.
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In the second Setup window, click the first button to install the hardware
driver (if an AudioDrive driver has been previously installed, first choose
Driver Uninstallation, restart windows, then install the new driver), the second
button to install the Audio Applications, or the third button to remove the
current hardware driver.
Let's examine each of these options.
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If you choose Driver Installation, the following window appears:
Unless you need to configure the board settings yourself, choose the
Automatic Board Configuration button to install the hardware driver.
Automatic Board Configuration will attempt to determine the I/O address,
interrupt, and DMA channel settings of your board.
If you choose Custom Board Configuration, the following window
appears:
The window opens showing the factory default settings. If you do not know
the I/O address, interrupt, and DMA channel of your board, refer to the
hardware installation manual. For the Stereo Magician Plus (ES688) board,
the interrupt and DMA channel are software configurable.
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In the next window (below), choose Restart Windows if
the Audio Applications are already installed. If not, choose Install Software.
From the main setup window, click the Software Installation button to install
the Audio Applications.
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The default directory is PCAUDIO. To store the Audio Applications in
another directory, type its name and click OK.
If the directory you specify does not exist, Setup will create it for you.
If the Audio Applications have been previously installed, this window appears:
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Choose Change Directory to install the files in another directory, preserving
the previous installation. If you choose Continue, this window appears:
To install all the Audio Applications, click the Complete Installation button.
To install only some Audio Applications, choose Custom Installation.
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If you choose Custom Installation, this window appears:
To exclude an application from the installation, click its box. To store the
applications in another directory, choose Change Directory and specify the
directory. Choose Install to install the selected Audio Applications.
After installation, the application icons appear in the Audio Applications
program group:
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Note: If you have a previous version of the software and the Setup program
is unable to load the driver, follow this procedure:
1. Exit Windows and reboot your system.
2. Delete auddrive.drv, vaudrv.386, and threed.vbx from the directory
windows\system, if any of these files are present.
3. Restart Windows, ignoring any Windows error messages.
4. Insert Setup Disk 1 in a drive, then choose Run from the File menu,
enter a: or b: and setup, and click the OK button.
5. Go through the Setup program again.
Changing Audio Boards
You may wish to replace your present audio board with another type-for example, replacing Audio Magician Plus with Stereo Magician Plus.
Before doing so, run the Setup program and choose the Driver Uninstall
option before you turn off the computer to change the board.
Once the new board is installed, run the Setup program again and choose the
Driver Installation option. This procedure loads the correct MIDI mapper
configuration file and other system information.
Important: Skipping the driver reinstallation procedure will most likely cause
the audio system to malfunction.
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3: The Audio Recorder
Introduction
The Audio Recorder enables you to record, compress, store and playback
voice, music, and other sound. It provides settings for sound attributes such
as mono/stereo, compression level, and sampling rate. You can use it to
embed sound objects in documents created in applications that support object
linking and embedding (OLE). The Audio Recorder's record, edit and
playback capabilities are compatable with the Windows Sound Recorder and
other recorders that record and playback in the PCM format.
The Audio Recorder can record to and playback from both .WAV and .AUD
formats. .WAV is the Microsoft Windows 3.1 audio file format. The .AUD
format uses ESPCM/ADPCM compression to produce an audio file. The
Audio Recorder provides a choice of linear PCM, ADPCM and low, medium
and high ESPCM compression.
The following chart shows the capabilities of the AudioDrive on-chip
compression/decompression feature:
Compress/Decompress Format ES688 ES1488 ES488
ESPCM Low (4-bit) Record Yes Yes Yes
ESPCM Low (4-bit) Playback Yes Yes Yes
ESPCM Medium (3-bit) Record No No No
ESPCM Medium (3-bit) Playback Yes Yes Yes
ESPCM High (1-bit) Record No No No
ESPCM High (1-bit) Playback Yes Yes Yes
ADPCM Record No No Yes
ADPCM Playback Yes Yes Yes
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Starting the Audio Recorder
To start the Audio Recorder, open the Audio Applications program group and
double-click the Audio Recorder icon.
OR: choose Run from the Program Manager's File menu, then type
c:\pcaudio\audiorec and click the OK button.
The Audio Recorder window appears:
The Audio Recorder can receive input from microphones, a cassette tape
player, a compact disk player, or any other line-in source.
Areas under the button bar show the length of a selected part of the current
audio file, the total time, mono or stereo, and the sampling rate in kilohertz.
The large area in the center of the window shows the waveform of the current
audio file.
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The buttons at the bottom of the Audio Recorder window enable you to start
and stop recording and playback.
RECORD PLAY STOP
Begins recording. Begins playback. Ends recording/playback
Audio Recorder Menu Commands
File Menu
New begins a new audio file. The Audio Recorder starts with a new file.
Open enables you to load an existing audio file.
Save stores the current audio file to disk under its existing file name.
Save As enables you to change the name of the audio file before saving it.
Choosing this command displays the Save As Sound File dialog box.
See the page 20 for a description of Options in this dialog box.
Revert restores the previously saved version of the current audio file.
Properties displays the Properties dialog box, from which you can see and
change properties of the current audio file.
Exit closes the Audio Recorder window.
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Edit Menu
Undo reverses the last change you made to the current audio file.
Cut erases the selected audio portion and stores it on the Clipboard.
Copy copies the selected audio portion to the Clipboard without removing it.
Paste inserts the Clipboard audio at the cursor, pushing other material ahead.
If audio is selected, Paste replaces the selection with the Clipboard audio.
Paste Mix mixes the Clipboard audio with the audio beginning at the cursor.
Delete erases the selected portion of the recording. To recover a deleted
sound, use the Undo command immediately after using Delete.
Mute silences the selected portion of the audio file, leaving it blank.
To recover a muted sound, use Undo immediately after using Mute.
Select All select the entire recording.
Zoom In enlarges the waveform display.
Zoom Out reduces the waveform display.
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Insert File displays the Insert File dialog box. From here you select an
audio file to be inserted into the current file at the cursor. If audio is
selected, the inserted audio file replaces the selected audio.
Mix with File displays the Mix with File dialog box. From here you select
an audio file to be mixed with the current file, beginning at the cursor.
Options Menu
Options menu commands enable you to display the Volume Control,
Recording Control, and Mixer windows.
Recording Control mixes audio from several sources in a recording.
Volume Control adjusts the play volume.
Mixer combines audio from several sources during playback.
Always On Top displays the Audio Recorder on top of other windows.
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Effects Menu
The Audio Recorder's Effects commands change the waveform of the audio
you have selected. If there is no selection, the entire file is affected. To
change the audio back to what it was before you used an Effects command,
choose Undo from the Edit menu before using any other command.
Normalize amplifies the selected audio to the maximum volume possible
without distortion.
Volume increases or decreases the amplitude of the selected audio by 25%.
Speed changes the selected audio to be 100% faster or slower. The frequency
is not changed.
Fade causes the selected audio to Fade In from its lowest amplitude to its
highest, or Fade Out from its highest amplitude to its lowest.
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Echo displays the Echo Rate dialog box. From here you set the echo delay
and echo volume for the selected audio.
Reverse flips the selected audio backwards, so the end becomes the beginning
and the beginning becomes the end.
Help Menu
Contents displays topics you can choose for information.
About Audio Recorder gives the version number and copyright information.
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The Audio Recorder Toolbar
For your convenience, eight often-used menu commands are also available as
toolbar buttons at the top of the Audio Recorder window. Here is the
meaning of each button:
New Open Save Undo
Cut Copy Paste Paste Mix
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Making a Recording
1. Select New from the File menu. The Sound Attributes dialog box
appears:
2. In the Sound Attributes dialog box, choose settings for Sampling Rate,
Stereo (on or off), and Format, then click the OK button.
• Choose one of the PCM (uncompressed) formats if you want the
highest sound quality, or it you wish to edit or modify the recording
with Effects commands before you save it.
• Choose one of the ESPCM or ADPCM compression formats if you
wish to save disk space and don't mind sacrificing some sound quality.
2. In the Audio Recorder window, click the Record button.
Speak into the microphone or turn on the line-in source.
3. Click the Stop button to end the recording.
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