notes
• Searching, playing many sounds and downloading new sounds
at the same
time can use a lot of computer time and bandwidth. The faster
your computer and connection the better. If your machine slows down or the
sound breaks
up too much, try pausing the search or reducing the number of
sounds playing.
Over a modem it is generally best to search and load longer
sounds before
beginning a mix.
• Remote loading of files will timeout if no activity takes
place after
60 seconds on that connection. You can have several files downloading
at
the same time (however the AFG will only attempt to download
one file
at at time).
• The NOIZEPROBE has two modes. If you type in a full URL
it will scan that
URL for sound files then follow any links on that site (randomly)
until
they have been checked and then moves onto any external links from
that site.
Following external links can lead anywhere and is unlikely to
ever finish,
however it will avoid scanning sites like Yahoo and goto.com.
If you type
in a keyword then it will select two search engines from the
list defined
in the startup script, the first from one of the first two URL's,
the second
from the rest. When called like this the noizeprobe will not
scan offsite
links. You can script the probe using AFG commands to do offsite
scans from
any URL you so desire.
• The AFG attached to the keystroke 'S' has a set of preconfigured
parameters
that you cannot modify. To experiment with the AFG see the file
labelled
'default.afg' to see examples of how custom generators can be
attached to
the function keys. Note that the AFG pauses while it waits for
a remote sound
to load and as such includes a parameter to restrict the maximum
file size it
will attempt to place in a composition (by default this is 250K
but can be
changed using the procedure outlined above).
• You may need to click into the the top window before
you can type into
the noizeprobe. Don't forget to click on the spike (or press
TAB) to use
the keyboard to control the sounds again.
• You can use your own sounds in <earshot> by placing them
in the 'noize'
folder located with your copy of earshot or in any directory
inside the
earshot folder and pressing PAGE DOWN/PAGE UP until you see
your sounds
on the spike. Any sounds already playing will continue while
you load
other sets of sounds onto the spike.
• Sometimes you may hear clicks in sounds when dragging
them around,
this is a problem with QuickTime itself. We have found that
by using
uncompressed sounds and a good quality soundcard these can be
minimised.
We have tested on a Compaq PII/400 with a Yamaha DSP2416 with
good
results. Future versions may support ASIO drivers for higher
quality and
multiple sound channels.
• Try feeding earshot with single track MIDI phrases and
loops for more
composition control. You can also edit your own sounds into
QuickTime
using 'QTMA Atomic Editor' (on the Apple QuickTime site). You
can drive an external sampler or synth from <earshot> by selecting
it in the
QuickTime control panel.
• Split left and right outputs, one to headphones, one
to mixer. Hold shift
down when adding sound so they go on muted. Hit ENTER to toggle
to
headphones and unmute (M). Mix sound and when ready hit ENTER
to drop the sound into the mix!
• Read 'default.afg' (in the <earshot> download folder)
for preview of scripting language syntax and statements.
• If you have access to more than one computer experiment with running <earshot> on both
with different generative parameters and sound sets (say beats
on one and
pads and vocal samples on other; or one in generative and one
in manual).
• For added enjoyment you may like to try using HEADBANGER,
also from
DeepDiscCollective, to create beats from HTML pages.
• If you have trouble quitting due to a hung URL load (or
whatever),'ALT-TAB'
to the <earshot> start screen and press exit.
