.nf
a1	    	\fBsoundin\fR	ifilno[, iskptim]
a1, a2	    	\fBsoundin\fR	ifilno[, iskptim]
a1, a2, a3, a4 	\fBsoundin\fR	ifilno[, iskptim]
	    	\fBout\fR		asig
	    	\fBouts1\fR		asig
	    	\fBouts2\fR		asig
	    	\fBouts\fR		asig1, asig2
	    	\fBoutq1\fR		asig
	    	\fBoutq2\fR		asig
	    	\fBoutq3\fR		asig
	    	\fBoutq4\fR		asig
	    	\fBoutq\fR		asig1, asig2, asig3, asig4	
.fi

These units read from and write to an external sound-file device.


INITIALIZATION

\fIifilno\fR - integer suffix (n) of a binary file named 'soundin.n',
assumed to be in the directory SFDIR (see also GEN01).
This is normally a soundfile (with header), whose samples may be either
shorts or floats.
If the file has no soundfile header, they are assumed floats.

\fIiskptim\fR (optional) - time in seconds of input sound to be skipped.
The default value is zero.


PERFORMANCE

\fBsoundin\fR is functionally a signal generator that happens to derive
its signal from a pre-existing file.  The number of channels read in
is set by the number of result cells, a1, a2, etc.
A \fBsoundin\fR unit opens this file whenever the host instrument is
initialized, then closes it again each time the instrument is turned off.
There can be any number of \fBsoundin\fR units within a single instrument
or orchestra; also, two or more of them can read simultaneously from the
same external file.

\fBout, outs, outq\fR, on the other hand, do not deal directly with an
external sound file, but send audio samples to an accumulating output
buffer (created at the beginning of performance) which serves to collect
the output of all active instruments before the sound is written to disk.
There can be any number of these output units in an instrument.  The type
(mono, stereo, or quad) must agree with \fBnchnls\fR, but units can be
chosen to direct sound to any particular channel:  \fBouts1\fR sends to
stereo channel 1, \fBoutq3\fR to quad channel 3, etc.

Soundfile statements are most commonly used in direct sound generation.
However, they also lend themselves to the standard studio tasks of mixing,
splicing, editing, post reverberating, etc.  By doing these operations
digitally, the problem of accumulated analog tape noise is thus avoided.
.bp
