Re: Sound

[Jerzy Karczmarczuk <karczma@info.unicaen.fr>]

Of course, I haven't said what I really wanted,
posing my question about sound.

Matthew quotes the MrEd manual, where indeed there is a
page on play-sound. That I knew, I simply wanted to find
something which really discusses the matter.

Matthias suggests the extension collection, which I will
check thoroughly right now. (Actually there is nothing
specific there, only a package dealing with speech. Somebody
tested it?)

You write:

> Our support for sound is still not very good. At a minimum, 
> we'd like there to be one format that works on all platforms. 
> If anyone out there is an expert on sound and can suggest a
> strategy for better sound support, please let us know.


I believe that for the moment the formats which should be
accepted are - at least - AU and AIFF. It would be good to
have an extension able to generate them... 

I'll try to find some multi-platform solutions. One obvious
departure point is the source of CSound. BTW, CSound is a
wonderful piece of software, programmed in a most lousy,
assembly-style language. One can do much better in a functional
style. Many audio special effects (and some filter design) are
based on recursive algorithms which could be nicely coded in
Scheme.

(Anyway, you, at Rice, you have a strong group of specialists
on DSP: http://www-dsp.rice.edu/)
==

But, what bothers me personnally *much* more, is the support for
midi files: both for creation and for lecture/rendering. It 
would be nice - perhaps - to rewrite in Scheme (and to improve 
it!) some goodies from Common Music, or to implement a universal
musical machine with nice graphic support like KeyKit.

Just dreaming...?

Jerzy Karczmarczuk
Caen, France