

		ST: Sound Tools



ST translates sound samples between different file formats,
and performs various sound effects.

This release understands "raw" files in various binary formats,
Sound Blaster .VOC files, IRCAM SoundFile files, SUN Sparcstation 
.au files, mutant DEC .au files, Apple/SGI AIFF files, 
Macintosh HCOM files, Sounder files, and Soundtool (DOS) files.

The sound effects include changing the sample rate, adding echo 
delay lines, applying low- and band-pass filtering, and the 
infamous Fender Vibro effect.

History:
This is the sixth release of the Sound Tools.  Patchlevel 8.

This release includes many many bug fixes from helpful
users.  It has a (fairly) clean DOS port via
Turbo C, and Amiga, QNX, and VMS ports.  
New are Turtle Beach SampleVision and the 
Auto-Detect handlers.  You can now read and 
write stereo .VOC files
if you manually select stereo mode.

There is a nice graphical front-end for the NeXT
called GISO.  Check the comp.sys.next group
or poke around the NeXT binary sites.  Also
someone has done an OS/2 port.

The DOS port requires 8.3 file names.  Ick.

Caveats:
SOX is intended as the Swiss Army knife of sound
processing tools.  It doesn't do anything very well,
but sooner or later it comes in very handy.
SOX is really only useable day-to-day if you
hide the wacky options with one-line shell scripts.

Channel averaging doesn't work.  The software architecture
of stereo & quad is bogus.

The VMS and Amiga ports were done against old versions
of SOX.  I digested the contributed fixes and files
into altered source files.  There are, I'm sure, a 
few little fixes which need to be done before this release
compiles and runs on these two platforms.

Installing:
Use the DOS, Unix, or Amiga Makefile as appropriate.
The Makefile needs one option set: -DSYSV if you're on a
System V machine, or -DBSD if you're on a BSD-ish machine.
See the INSTALL file for more detailed instructions.

After compiling, run 'tests.sh'.  It should print nothing.  This
indicates that data is copied correctly.  By reading the tests
you may see how to make a sound sample file which you can play.
'monkey.au' and 'monkey.voc' are a short lo-fi monkey screech
in two supported file formats, to help you ensure that Sound 
Tools works.  Note: 'tests.sh' works only under the Unix sh(1) 
shell.  Use 'tests.com' under VMS.

Then, run 'testall.sh'.  This copies monkey.voc into all other
supported file formats, making files in /tmp.  Then, it
translates those formats back into .voc format.  This
ensures (slightly) that all of the readers & writers don't 
core-dump.

SOX uses file suffices to determine the nature of a sound sample file.
If it finds the suffix in its list, it uses the appropriate read
or write handler to deal with that file.  You may override the suffix
by giving a different type via the '-t type' argument.  See the manual
page for more information.  The 'tests.sh' script illustrates various
sox usages.

SOX has an auto-detect feature that attempts to figure out
the nature of an unmarked sound sample.  It works very well.

I hope to inspire the creation of a common base of sound processing
tools for computer multimedia work, similar to the PBM toolkit for 
image manipulation.

Sound Tools may be used for any purpose.  Source
distributions must include the copyright notices.  Binary
distributions must include acknowledgements to the creators.
The files I wrote are copyright Lance Norskog.
The contributed files are copyright by their respective authors.

When you have minor changes to contribute, it's OK to post
them; if you have a major release, please send it to me.
I'd like to coordinate the releases and do a peer review.
Please document your changes.  I don't possess every kind
of computer currently sold, and SOX is now beyond the phase
where I can understand and test most of your contributions.
Please make your diff files such that your changes are 
set off with ifdefs, and document them. 

Note: There will be absolutely no more hardware driver
handlers in SOX.  Playing & recording sound samples is
not SOX's job; translation and sound effects is it.

Enjoy!

	Creator & Maintainer:
		Lance Norskog		thinman@netcom.com

	Contributors:
		Guido Van Rossum	guido@cwi.nl
			AU, AIFF, AUTO, HCOM, reverse,
			many bug fixes
		Jef Poskanzer		jef@well.sf.ca.us
			original code for u-law and delay line
		Bill Neisius		bill%solaria@hac2arpa.hac.com 
			DOS port, 8SVX, Sounder, Soundtool formats
			Apollo fixes, stat with auto-picker
		Rick Richardson		rick@digibd.com
			WAV and SB driver handlers, fixes
		David Champion		dgc3@midway.uchicago.edu
			Amiga port 
		Pace Willisson		pace@blitz.com
			Fixes for ESIX
		Leigh Smith		leigh@psychok.dialix.oz.au
			SMP and comment movement support.
		David Sanderson		dws@ssec.wisc.edu
			AIX3.1 fixes
		Glenn Lewis		glewis@pcocd2.intel.com
			AIFF chunking fixes
		Brian Campbell		brianc@quantum.qnx.com
			QNX port and 16-bit fixes
		Chris Adams		gt8741@prism.gatech.edu
			DOS port fixes
		John Kohl		jtkohl@kolvir.elcr.ca.us
			BSD386 port, VOC stereo support
		Ken Kubo		ken@hmcvax.claremont.edu
			VMS port, VOC stereo support

	Matthew Stier of Sun East contributed a version for
	SUNos 4.1, but it included massive gratuitous code 
	beautification and I couldn't use it.  This release 
	compiles under whatever version of SUNos is on 
	netcom2.netcom.com.
		
		

		(your name could be here, too)

