1. Sound-Cards Software Patrick Horne

2. 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

3. 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

4. History of Soundcards / Software 1974 - Lynne Wilmslow 1982 - TRS- 80/Spectrum SoundCard – Published in Practical Computing (Lyndsay Robinson)

5. History of Soundcard / Software 1984 - Spectrum Computer add on made by Datel. Analogue to digital converter, 8 bit, low cost Ferranti ZN427/ 449

6. What Can a Modern Sound Card do? Sound Cards can deal with –MIDI –WAV Some can also deal with –Compressed Sounds – MP3, WMA

7. Categories of Music Software Drives Music Manipulates –Curbase Players –Windows Media Player –WinAmp –Real Player Burners Software –Create your own Music CD

8. 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.

9. How does Streaming Audio Work Buffer Browser HTTP Server Browser makes HTTP Request To Server for Streaming File Sends text file With link to Audio server Opens up Streaming software Streaming Server Decode Compressed data PlaySound Winmm.dll (memory address) Sound card

10. Software: Curbase Multi Track Recording –Play on different tracks at the same time.

11. 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

12. 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.

13. Software: Curbase –Virtual Instruments and plugin effects –Allows you to import extra instruments

15. Mute button Mute Mute All

16. Record Button Stop Loop Tempo Allow jump to sections

17. Element on the track Lets you make a selection Lets you Cut apart the Track - Splicing Glue lets you stick Bit of track together Lets You select A empty track

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

19. Mute button Right Click on to a context menu Go to view -> Edit using different modes Edit the bit you recorded

20. Allows you to fine tune your MIDI recordings Allows individual changes on track Same type of changing facilities Each Represents a note being played

23. 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

24. 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.

25. Imports System Imports System.Diagnostics Imports System.IO Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices Public Class Sounds _ 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

26. 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

27. Programming for Soundcards Public Class ConsoleStart Sub Main() Public Sub Main() Sounds.Play(“helloworld.wav”) End Sub End Class

28. 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

29. 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.jp g

30. Any Questions