[Sugar-devel] Advice request: XO sound recording

[Bert Freudenberg]

On 01.10.2010, at 00:33, Art Hunkins wrote:

> My new activity, FileMix, encourages children to create their own "nature" 
> recordings to mix and process in FileMix (i.e., create "soundscapes"). Files 
> can be mono or stereo, any sample rate and duration, and most file formats. 
> The files also need to be renamed and placed in the FileMix.activity folder.
> 
> The Record activity is a natural for recording audio, and I had thought it 
> would be the appropriate vehicle. I've recently discovered that it only 
> produces Ogg Speex files, not the higher-quality Ogg Vorbis variety. 
> Unfortunately, Csound and libsndfile handle only Ogg Vorbis - not Speex. (It 
> would be very nice if Record *could* output Ogg Vorbis.)
> 
> So I turned to eToys. I find it somewhat iffy to record in eToys (on an 
> XO-1.5); sometimes it works, sometimes not. The main obstacle I face is that 
> recordings seem embedded in projects, and I don't find where/how to access 
> the recording by itself. (The sound editor, and variety of output 
> resolutions [including WAV and VORBIS] are excellent.) The documentation 
> (floss) isn't helpful here either.
> 
> I am able to record and save, but to where I don't know -not, it seems, to 
> the Sound Library. The Library location is not given. It seems you can take 
> something out of it, but not put something in? (Confusing.) I very much need 
> a simpler procedure to save and transfer/relocate individual recordings.
> 
> So, my question: can someone please explain how to get eToys sound files 
> isolated and copied to other folders, and/or which other activities might 
> meet my needs at least as well as (or better than) eToys and Record?

Well, Etoys was not designed as editor for other formats. Sounds you record are just objects in memory. An Etoys project file is basically a memory dump of the objects used in one project. We have a variety of import options but few for file export. Squeak/Etoys is a thoroughly object-oriented system - files are so quaint ;)

I don't think there is a user interface for exporting sounds as files. The code is there, e.g. "OggDriver example1" saves a Vorbis file and "OggDriver example4" saves as Speex. But besides not being exposed in the UI, these only save to the file system, not to the Journal. That capability could be added of course. Patches welcome :)

Short of that, you could suggest the feature in our tracker at

	http://tracker.squeakland.org/

- Bert -