Enclosed is the "Farallon Sound Expansion" INIT which will allow any application which uses Apple's Sound Manager in System 6.0.7 to play 4:1 and 8:1 compressed sounds created with Farallon sound products. (Since 1987, Farallon has provided a variety of compression levels and sampling rates, to allow users to tune their recording sessions for optimum sound quality, given their available processing power and disk space. Compressed sounds created with Farallon products have been incorporated into many existing applications, including Hypercard® stacks.) Note that 4:1 and 8:1 playback through the Sound Manager are built into the MacRecorder Driver (MRD) — you need not install both the MRD and the Farallon Sound Expansion INIT on the same machine. The separate INIT is being made available for users who do not own MacRecorders and do not need the MRD's capabilities.
[Note: The MacRecorder Driver is available as a free update to all registered owners of MacRecorder products. To receive an update please call Farallon Customer Service at 415-596-9000.]
Installation
The Farallon Sound Expansion INIT can be installed in the system simply by dragging the file to the 6.0.7 system folder and restarting the machine.
Features
The Farallon Sound Expansion INIT allows the System 6.0.7 Sound Manager to play Farallon 22 kHz compressed at 4:1 and 8:1 to play.
Documentation for MacRecorder Driver Version 1.0
To provide more information on the MacRecorder Driver we have included the documentation on the driver below. The driver is available to registered owners of MacRecorder.
Installation
The MacRecorder Driver can be installed in the system simply by dragging the file to the 6.0.7 system folder and restarting the machine.
Features
The MacRecorder Driver has somewhat different feature sets, depending on whether it is used on a 16 MHz 68020 or faster machine, or on a Mac Plus, SE, or Classic. These two cases are treated separately in the following text.
16 MHz 68020 and Faster Machines
For fast cpu's, the MRD includes:
• sampling rates of 22 KHz, 11 KHz, 7 KHz, and 5 KHz,
• compression rates of 3:1, 4:1, 6:1, 8:1, and No Compression,
• automatic detection of the presence of MacRecorders on either or both serial ports,
• asynchronous recording at all compression and sampling rates.
Under the MRD, on fast cpu's, "Good", "Better", and "Best" recording levels supported by Apple's Sound Input Manager default to 22 KHz sampling with 6:1 Apple MACE compression, 22 KHz sampling with 3:1 Apple MACE compression, and 22 KHz with No Compression, respectively. The MRD supports the standard Sound Input Manager selecting mechanism and selectors for other sampling rates. To use Farallon's proprietary 4:1 or 8:1 compression, the appropriate selectors are 'FAR4' and 'FAR8', respectively. Note that all MRD compression or decompression requires the use of the 22KHz sampling rate.
Both compression and downsampling (decreasing the sampling rate) lessen the amount of disk space needed to store a given sound. For many sound recording applications, users find that compression produces a higher quality recording than downsampling, for comparable amounts of disk space used. However, compression uses more processing resources than downsampling. If you wish to compare the results of compression and downsampling, 3:1 compression at 22KHz, and No Compression at 7 KHz will use equal amounts of disk space for each second of sound you record.
The MRD automatically detects the presence of MacRecorders on either or both serial ports. If only one MacRecorder is connected, recording is automatically set to use the serial port which has the MacRecorder attached. If MacRecorders are attached to both serial ports, the MRD currently defaults to using the modem port. Stereo recording with two MacRecorders will be supported in the very near future.
Mac Plus, SE, and Classic
For slower cpu's, the MRD includes:
• sampling rates of 22 KHz, 11 KHz, 7 KHz, and 5 KHz,
• automatic detection of the presence of MacRecorders on either or both serial ports,
• asynchronous recording at all sampling rates, with No Compression.
Under the MRD, on slower cpu's, "Good", "Better", and "Best" recording levels supported by Apple's Sound Input Manager default to 7Khz with No Compression, 11 KHz with No Compression, and 22 KHz with No Compression, respectively. The MRD supports the standard Sound Input Manager selecting mechanism and selectors for other sampling rates. Compression has been disabled in order to support asynchronous recording on these machines. While actually recording, the Sony (floppy) driver is temporarily disabled, and AppleTalk traffic is temporarily ignored.
Macintosh Models Supported
The MacRecorder Driver works with most models of Macintosh however because of conflicts with the power management feature the Macintosh Portable is not supported by the driver. In addition, because of timing differences on Mac SE's created by accelerators the MacRecorder Driver will not work on some accelerated Mac SE's.
Not Supported
Currently, the MRD does not support:
• some accelerated Mac SE's - because of timing differences on Mac SE's created by accelerators the MacRecorder Driver will not work properly.
• use on the Macintosh Portable, the power management feature the Macintosh Portable conflicts with the MacRecorder Driver
• use of User Routines.
Cautions for the User
Recording When AppleTalk Traffic Is High
When doing high-quality recording under conditions of heavy AppleTalk traffic, mouse response may be very slow, and the MacRecorder Driver may occasionally lose some samples, causing minor sound "glitches". The use of 32-bit QuickDraw™ exacerbates this problem. To prevent these sound glitches on 16 MHz 68020 and faster machines, set AppleTalk to Inactive in your Chooser window before you begin to record, and reactivate it when your recording session is complete. This precaution will probably not be necessary for voice-quality recording. On slower machines, AppleTalk traffic will be temporarily ignored during recording.
Recording on a Mac Plus
Due to the limited processing resources on the Mac Plus, the MacRecorder Driver is likely to lose samples when the mouse is moved during a recording session on a Plus. To obtain the best possible sound quality, we encourage you to minimize mouse movement during recording.
MacRecorder® digitizer and MacRecorder® Voice digitizer are registered trademarks of Farallon Computing, Inc.
Macintosh® and Hypercard® are registered trademarks and QuickDraw™ is a trademark of Apple Computer, Incorporated.
