A playlist is a sequence of audio events. You can build up a list of audio sequences to play one after another using Peak 1.5’s new playlist feature. In addition, Power Macintosh users can apply Premiere audio plug-in to playlist events in real-time.
Regions
A region is a portion of an audio document marked with a start and an end. The audio events that are played back in a playlist are regions. Peak displays regions start and end points as flagged markers in the audio document window. Additionally, all regions defined in the frontmost audio document window will appear under the Region Menu.
Regions are saved into AIFF and Sound Designer II files created by Peak. Peak will also read regions stored from other programs in Sound Designer II files. The method Peak uses to store regions in AIFF files is specific to Peak and is not supported by other software applications. If you are using regions with other programs, you will want to store you files as Sound Designer II files.
To define a new region:
1. Make a selection in an opened audio document.
2. Choose “New Region” from the Action menu. You will be asked to name the new region. Type the name of the region and hit the “OK” button. The new region will appear in the audio document.
To modify the length of the region by changing the start or end:
1. Drag the start or end marker of the region in the audio document window.
To change the name of a region:
1. Double click on either the start or end marker of the region in the audio document window. The Edit Region dialog will appear.
2. Type the new name of the region into the dialog and click “OK”.
To move a region without changing it’s length:
1. Hold down the option key and drag either the start or end marker of the region.
To edit a region’s start, end, or length manually:
1. Double click on either the start or end marker of the region in the audio document window. The Edit Region dialog will appear.
2. Enter new values for Start, End, or Length times, then click the “OK” button.
To locate a region:
1. Choose the region you wish to locate under the Region Menu. The audio document will scroll automatically to display the region and the region will become the current selection in the audio document.
Creating a Playlist
Select the “New Playlist” item from the New... menu under the File menu. An empty playlist document will appear. The top of the playlist has category titles for each column of information. The bottom of the playlist shows playback time and total duration of the playlist.
You may add regions to the playlist by selecting items from the Region Menu while the playlist is the frontmost audio document. Each region you add to the playlist becomes a playlist event. The center of the playlist window shows playlist events in a list. You may use regions from more than one audio document. However, the audio document with the regions you wish to use in the playlist must be open.
A playlist event has several properties that can be modified. Each event can have a crossfade in, crossfade out, gain, and up to 4 plug-in DSP effects. Since the transitions between one audio event to another can be abrupt, a playlist crossfade can be used to smooth the transition from one audio event to another.
The crossfade fades out the first region while fading in the next region. Each playlist event has separate controls for crossfade in, crossfade out, crossfade in time, and crossfade out time. The curve stored in crossfade in is used to fade in the current region. The curve stored in crossfade out is used to fade out into the next region.
Crossfades are stored in RAM and not on disk. They are computed before playback when necessary. If a crossfade is being calculated, a red dot will appear next the the playlist event and it will turn back to green when the crossfade has been recalculated. Since crossfades may require extra RAM, make sure you provide the Peak application with enough RAM from the Finder’s Get Info dialog.
The audio material from each region overlaps beyond the region boundaries. As the first region ends, the next region’s audio material begins to fade in. When the next region begins playing, the first region continues to fade out.
Using the separate crossfade in and crossfade out curves, Peak provides you with the flexibility to create all common crossfade types. These include “Linear Crossfade”, “Equal Power Crossfade”, “Slow in but fast out Crossfade”, “Fast in but slow out crossfade”, and “Overlap transition”. Peak is also flexible in allowing you to control crossfade in and crossfade out durations separately. All crossfades are based on overlapping audio from the previous or subsequent regions and then mixing the overlapping material after applying the crossfade curves.
A playlist event’s gain setting can be used to control the balance of the event in a playlist. You may need to raise the volume or lower the volume of some playlist events to maintain a proper balance of volume levels.
** Be careful not to set a playlist’s gain too high as you may overload the signal and cause clipping to occur. You may also introduce clicks between playlist events if the difference in gain between the two playlist events is too large.
To add items to the playlist:
1. Pull down the Region menu and select the region you wish to add to the playlist. A new playlist event will be created and displayed in the playlist window. This operation requires that the playlist be the frontmost audio document.
To select items in the playlist:
1. Click on the item in the playlist that you wish to select. You may use the shift key to select several items in the playlist.
To insert items into the playlist:
To hear your playlist, use the Transport control or press the spacebar. The playlist will begin playback from the current selected playlist event.
To preview transitions between playlist regions:
1. Select the playlist event you wish to hear the transition into.
2. Use the Transport control or press the spacebar while holding down the command key. The preroll setting from the Auditioning... preferences (under the Preferences Menu) will be used to audition from the end of the previous playlist event into the selected playlist event.
Modifying Playlist Events
To move items in the playlist:
1. Click and drag the playlist event to the new location. A green line will indicate the new position for the playlist event. Release the mouse button when the green line is at the location you wish to place the event.
To delete items in the playlist:
1. Select the playlist event you wish to delete by clicking on it.
2. Press the “Delete” key on your keyboard. The event will be removed from the playlist, and the audio events below the event will move up. This operation will decrease the duration of the playlist.
To edit a crossfade in or out:
1. Double-click on the playlist event’s crossfade in or crossfade out picture. The envelope editor will appear where you may edit the points making up the crossfade in or out.
To change the duration of a crossfade in or out:
1. Double click on the playlist even’t crossfade in time or crossfade out time. A dialog will prompt you to enter the time for the playlist event’s crossfade in or out duration.
Playlist DSP Effects
** Playlist DSP Effects only work on Power Macintosh systems. Playlist DSP Effects are also only compatible with PowerPC Native plug-ins. Check with the manufacturer of your plug-in to ensure compatibility.
On Power Macintosh systems, you may apply up to four DSP processes per playlist event. This powerful feature allows you to place different plug-in DSP effects on different events that are processed in real-time. This is very useful if you are creating remixes.
Please note the number of effects you can use is limited to the speed of your Power Macintosh. Some effects, such as Waves TrueVerb‚Ñ¢ may not be able to run in realtime on your processor. In addition, performance of Playlist DSP effects is reduced when other applications are open or if file sharing is in use during playback.
To add a DSP effect to a playlist event:
1. Highlight the audio you wish to preview in an open audio document. You will probably want to preview the loudest portion of a region to ensure level settings are correct in the plug-in DSP effect.
2. Make the playlist the frontmost audio document by clicking on it.
3. Click on first unused DSP effect box on the playlist event. You may select DSP effect boxes on multiple events by holding down the shift key while you select DSP effect boxes.
4. Choose a plug-in from the Plug-In menu.
5. Configure the plug-in settings and click the “OK” or “Process” button.
6. Peak will turn on the LED lights for the selected DSP effect boxes indicating that they are enabled.
To remove a DSP effect to a playlist event:
1. Click on the DSP effect box in the playlist event that you wish to remove. You may select multiple DSP effect boxes on multiple events by holding down the shift key while you select DSP effect boxes.
2. Press the “Delete” key on your keyboard. Peak will turn off the LED lights for the selected DSP effect boxes indicating that they are disabled.
To change the settings of a DSP effect on a playlist event:
1. Double-click on the DSP effect box in the playlist event that you wish to reconfigure.
Saving and Opening Playlists
** If you remove the regions used in a playlist, you may not be able to use the playlist that refers to the regions! If you delete a file that a playlist refers to, you also will not be able to use the playlist!
To save a playlist:
1. Choose “Save” from the File menu. If the playlist has not been saved yet, you will be asked to enter a name to save the playlist under, and a location to store the file.
2. Alternatively, you can save a copy of the playlist with the “Save As...” command.
To open a playlist:
1. Choose “Open” from the File menu. Select the playlist you wish to open with the Open File... Dialog. Peak will automatically open any audio documents that the playlist refers to. If the audio documents that the playlist refers to are deleted, you will be unable to use the playlist document.
To create a new Audio Document from the playlist:
1. Shift-click to select the playlist events you wish to turn into a new audio document, or use the “Select All” command from the Edit menu.
2. Choose “New Document from Playlist” under the File Menu’s New submenu.
3. A new audio document, with DSP effects and crossfades will be generated from the selected playlist events. Peak automatically places markers into the audio document that correspond to each playlist event boundary. The markers have names that match the name of the source region.
