Articles Natural Sound:
1) A+
Multi-media studio 86
initiate Convert from
the menu. In the background window, the lines appear in the phonetic alphabet.
When you click on or type the command Say, the lines are audibly generated.
The words you hear are only marginally comprehensible. If you're expecting
HAL or C3PO, think more in terms of R2D2. You can edit the phonetic screen,
using principles outlined in the documentation. With concentration and a lot
of trial and error, you can smooth out the words and deweird the intonations
- if you have the ear for it.
Why sound like a wind-up toy when you can use a sound digitizer for much more
realistic voice reproduction? Because when the memory chips are down, Macintalk
comes out the winner.
We always knew
the Mac was more than a pretty face; now it can talk and sing as well.
Sentences such as "Did we back up that file?" can demand more than 36K when you digitize them. In Macintalk, however, even a long paragraph for an instructional program bums up only 1K! Comparing the Two Systems To test out these digitizers, I used four kinds of sounds: my voice saying, "The sound goes round and round"; live acoustical music with harpist Cathleen O'Connell playing a wire-strung Celtic harp; opera, with Beniamino Gigli singing on an early 78rpm record; and contemporary rock with The Residents from their Duck Stab! album.
In playback, the two products' similarities were more notable than their differences. Above all, I had the pleasure and satisfaction of-at last! - hearing sounds like this come from my Mac. Although fidelity was limited, even the scratches and pops from Gigli's ancient 78 and the bell-like resonance of O'Connell's harp were dear and unmistakable. The Residents sounded right at home in a computer. When I compared the
effects processing, the
SoundCap files tended to be more precise and clear.
The central factors with two systems such as these are ease of use and end
product applications. Natural Sound's mixing function was more responsive
in previewing files, but, in most other aspects, SoundCap was by far faster,
more direct, and a completely finished program. I preferred SoundCap's hardware/software
monitoring controls, and editing its larger waveform was easier.
Once you have these great sounds, where do you go with them? Unlike Apple's MacPaint, whose standard graphic interface has encouraged the development of many kinds of compatible programs, there is no standard for sound samples. The Clipboard is helpful only for cutting and pasting within each application. You can't play one product's files on the other.
Each system provides player utilities permitting files to stand
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