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The Basics of D-SoundPRO
4.1. The Sound Document
A Sound Document is a special type of file that contains the basic
sound wave, or samples, and a series of parameters that the Mac uses to
play it. When you use D-SoundPRO, you will be working with a Sound Document.
4.2. Opening existing Sound Documents
D-SoundPRO is capable to load and save sound documents in the Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF), Sound Designer II (SDII) or .WAV (PC) formats. To work with an existing sound file, you must open it. Choose "Open" from the File menu or type option+O. You will be presented with an Open dialog. Locate the AIFF, SDII or .WAV file you wish to open, select it, and, if it is an AIFF file, click the "Listen" to listen the sound as soon you release the mouse button. If it is the sound you want to load, click the "Open" button. You are allowed to open AIFF, SDII or .WAV sound files created by D-SoundPRO as well as AIFF, SDII or .WAV sound files created by other programs.
Using D-SoundPRO you can alter the sound in a lot of different ways: you can cut, copy, clear, insert, mix, extract selections of sounds, fade the sound in or out, change loop points, and more. Try some sound manipulations selecting the actions from the Edit and Commands menu. Everything you are doing is undoable. Listen the effect choosing "Play Tone" from the Commands menu, typing option+P orr pushing the spacebar. The most common commands are replicated on the Tools floating palette. Push its buttons to apply the same commands you find in menus, but in a very faster way.
Using D-SoundPRO, you can play a sound in many different ways:
- Using the speaker button on the Tool Floating Window
- Pushing the space bar on the Macintosh Keyboard
- Pushing option + P (use this command again to Stop to play the sound)
- Selecting the Play command on menus (use this command again to Stop to play the sound)
- Using the Mac Keyboard (the Play from Mac option in the Synth menu must be enabled)
- Using the D-SoundPRO Virtual Keyboard
- Using an external MIDI keyboard
- Using an MIDI sequencer OMS compatible running on the same Macintosh
- Using an external MIDI sequencer
The D-SoundPRO Virtual Synthesizer responds to the following midi messages:
Note ON
Note OFF (also as Note ON message with Vel = 0)
Velocity
Pitch Bender
Hold (Sustain) pedal on/off (0x64)
Using the Mac Keyboard, this is the Key Map:
Use the Option or Option + Control combination to transpose the key one/two octaves down, the Shift or Shift + Control combination to transpose the key one/two octaves up. Open the Virtual Keyboard module to see the effect.
To Save files, choose "Save" or "Save as" from the File menu. A dialog appears with a list of files and folders on the left side. Locate the folder where you want to save your Sound Document, name it, and click on the "Save" button. If the file already exist, a dialog box will appear asking you if you want to overwrite the file. Finally, D-SoundPRO will save the Sound Document with its parameters as AIFF, SDII or .WAV file.