42. Configure other parameters dialog

Figure 42.1
Click on thumbnail for full size image.

Figure 42.1 shows the dialog Configure other parameters, which is accessible from the menu Configure >> Other parameters. On Mac OS X, look for the Other tab after selecting Kangas Sound Editor >> Preferences.

Here you can specify Default calculation frequency and Default pitch calculation frequency, which are used for determining how often amplitudes and pitches are recalculated when computing a sound. Higher calculation frequencies can improve the sound quality but reduce performance; in other words, sound files will take longer to compute. A Sound box allows these defaults to be overridden.

The checkbox Use MIDI pitch numbers by default on new compositions determines whether to use MIDI pitch numbers by default on new compositions, or use an alternative system of pitch numbers which is described on page 19 of this tutorial. The default can be overridden for a given composition from the dialog Set composition parameters, which is accessible from the menu Composition >> Parameters.

The checkbox Use negative offset sliders determines whether sliders other than the topmost in a set of sliders range from a negative value to a positive value (if checked), or range from zero to a positive value (if unchecked).

The checkbox Single internal player is used when Audio player command is set to Internal player, which causes Wave Player, introduced with version 4 of Kangas Sound Editor, to be launched whenever sounds are played by clicking the Play button. When checked, only one instance of Wave Player is active at any one time; when unchecked, a new instance of Wave Player is launched whenever Play is clicked.

The checkbox Compute child sound files is used when starting a computation by clicking on Compute. If checked, children of the entity being computed (e.g., Sequence boxes of a track being computed) will have their own sound file generated if either they already have a sound file or if their Keep intermediate file checkbox is checked.

The checkbox Compute child intermediate files is used when starting a computation by clicking on Compute. If checked, children of the entity being computed (e.g., Sequence boxes of a track being computed) will have their own intermediate audio file generated if their Keep intermediate file checkbox is checked.

The checkbox Reuse sound and intermediate filenames is used whenever a sound computation is performed. If checked, any existing sound and intermediate filenames for the entity being computed (and possibly also its children, see Compute child... checkboxes above) will be reused, overwriting any existing files of those names. When computing the same thing multiple times this will conserve greatly on disk space. Note, however, that if you copy-and-paste a box that already has a sound and/or intermediate file generated then there will be two boxes that link to the same sound/intermediate file; if you do not want this sharing effect (there are circumstances you might; for example, to save on computation time) then temporarily uncheck this checkbox, recompute sound for the box that has just been pasted and finally recheck this checkbox to go back to disk-economy mode.

Sound files directory and Intermediate files directory are used to specify a location for the (Kangas Sound Editor) generated sound and intermediate files respectively. Kangas Sound Editor never deletes these files, so maintenance of them (possibly with the help of Composition >> Export sound files — see below) is up to you.

Sound files export directory and Intermediate files export directory are used with the menu function Composition >> Export sound files, which is used for extracting the sound and intermediate files which are currently in use by a composition. You could do a clean up of the directories containing sound and intermediate files by first exporting the sound and intermediate files of the compositions you want to keep, then removing all the files in the Sound files directory and Intermediate files directory, and finally moving the exported files back into their original directories.

Audio player command is how Kangas Sound Editor knows which external audio player to invoke; or alternatively, from version 4, the internal audio player (Wave Player). For external audio players, Kangas Sound Editor looks for the string %F% and substitutes this with the file name it is trying to play; the rest of this field should correspond to a command for launching the external audio player — an example is shown in figure 42.1 for Microsoft Windows Media Player.

The drop-down list to the right of the Audio player command field gives you a few options for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X; if you can't get sound to play when you click the Play button in Kangas Sound Editor, you could try selecting Internal player for Wave Player or instead try some alternative options for your operating system from this drop-down list. For Mac OS X, if you choose Quicktime we recommend you configure it to autoplay sounds, which can be done from the Terminal application with the command:

defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGPlayMovieOnOpen 1

You also have some control over the Look and feel of Kangas Sound Editor. If you change this setting you need to exit Kangas Sound Editor and then restart it before the change will come into effect.

Checking checkbox Transparent toolbar icons is something you might like to try: in some look-and-feels it looks ok, whereas in others it doesn't. If you change this setting you need to exit Kangas Sound Editor and then restart it before the change will come into effect.

Default track view height in pixels refers to the height of the Edit, Waveform, Pitch, Amplitude and Channel views when these are opened from one of the nodes in the Tracks view (top left hand corner of Kangas Sound Editor main window) or from Composition >> Open Track.

Property view width in pixels fixes a width for the Property view. If you drag leftwards the vertical divider that separates the Property view from the Edit, Waveform and other views, a horizontal scrollbar will appear in the Property view if there is no longer room to display it at its currently configured width. The optimum value for this setting depends on current look-and-feel, the width of the data (e.g., to accommodate graph names), screen resolution and your personal preference.

Maximum number of tracks allow you to set a higher figure than the default of 10, should you need it. Setting it to a high value does have drawbacks: scrolling with a large number of tracks takes a little more time, and a large number uses more memory. If you change this setting, you need to exit Kangas Sound Editor and then restart it before the change will come into effect.

Default Edit View duration in seconds refers to the width of an Edit pane which is grid-free when you open it for the first time. Setting a higher value than needed can result in larger audio files and more time spent computing tracks than is strictly needed.