Glossary
Submitted by benjamin on Sat, 08/03/2008 - 15:16.
- Audio file:
- A file on a computer system ending in *.wav, *.mp3, *.wma, *.ogg, or a number of other formats. This file is a digital recording of a piece of music, speech or sound effect. *.wav files are very large; other formats are quite small.
- Effects Play and Stop Button:
- Each Effects channel on the Syrinscape interface has Play and Stop Buttons that indicates whether that channel is in playback mode. Playback on each channel can be started by clicking on the Play Button. When you click the stop button playback stop on that channel. If an effect is already playing on this channel, the sound will playback completely before sound is stopped. So if you want a long effect to finish playing before sound stops, press the stop button on its specific channel. If you want all effects to stop immediately us the Stop All Effects button instead.
- Effects Channel:
- A sound channel in Syrinscape that plays back short individual audio files named e1*.*, e2*.*, e3*.*, or e4*.*. These files are played back once and then Syrinscape waits for a randomised duration before it then plays another audio file. The pause between play back of Effects on each channel is controlled by the Gap Slider.
- Loop Channel:
- A sound channel in Syrinscape that plays back an audio file named loop1*.* or loop2*.*. As playback of the audio file is completed it is played back again imediately. If the audio file is edited properly, continuous, seamlessly repeating audio is possible indefinately. See the "How to create a Loop" tutorial.
- Normal Life:
- This is that thing you do between gaming sessions. Normal life typically doesn't include large swords and form fitting chainmail armour.
- State File:
- A text file with the ending *.ssc that stores the settings of the Syrinscape interface, including all the volume and gap sliders, and also the current directory setting.
- Sound Element:
- A short (3-10 seconds) sound recording. This could be a roar, a howl, a crash of thunder, a car alarm or anything else.
- Soundscape:
- A continuous field of sound, imitating some natural or man made environment. Created in Syrinscape by random playback of short individual sound elements.
- Start All Effects:
- When this button is clicked Syrinscape will attempt to start play back on all four Effects channels. If an Effects Channel is already active it will continue playback uneffected. If the current directory contains no relevantly named files for a certain Effects channel then that channel will remain inactive. The first playback on each channel is silent; this avoids a sudden barage of sound from all channels as this button is clicked. If you want a channel to start immediately, this can be done by clicking the Effects channel's Active checkbox.
- Stop All Effects
- When this button is clicked Syrinscape will quickly fade out sound on all four Effects channels and stop any further playback. For example, if a song is playing back in Effects channel 4, this song will stop quickly (with a three second fade out). If you wish to allow the playback of the song in channel 4 to complete before playback stops in that channel, then each of the Active checkboxes can be manually unchecked, instead. Playback of the currently playing Sound Element will then complete before playback is stopped.
