Re: Apple II Sound & Music Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

[mjmahon@aol.com (MJMahon)]

Hi, all!

I've just made my sampled sound player for 8-bit Apples available
as freeware, downloadable from my home page at:

    http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

Near the bottom of the page, there's a link to Sound Editor v2.2 which
is a ShrinkIt file.  The package contains DAC522, a high-quality sound
player for 1 MHz Apples.  It uses an ultrasonic "carrier" at 22 KHz, so
that source of "noise" is vanquished.  The quality is showcased nicely
if you have headphones or an external speaker attached to the tinny
little Apple speaker.  External amplification is cool, too!

The Sound Editor is just that, able to load, save, select, cut, paste,
change volume, resample (change frequency), compress 2:1 and
decompress 2:1 (using ADPCM).  It has a graphical "oscilloscope"
display.  Its primary limitation comes from running in as little as 64KB:
it can handle sounds only up to 1.8 seconds long.  But that's plenty
long enough for "beep replacements" and gaming sounds!

If you want to play (but not edit) longer sounds, there is a program
also available on the net (caltech, ground, ...) called 'IIsound', which
also uses my DAC522 player, but stores many seconds of sound
in auxmem (if you've got it).

To summarize,  if you think that all Apples before the GS could only
make beeps and snarls, download Sound Editor v2.2 and give it a
listen.  I think you'll be amazed.  ;-)

Let me know what you think!

-michael