The
Synclavier Company
Release
3.2 Notes
June 8. 1994
About This Document
This Document
describes the installation and features of The Synclavier® Company's Release
3.2 Software.
This release
encompasses;
•
Autoconform 2.0
•
Editview™ 3.4.1
•
MIDInet™ 1.6
•
NEDStartup 3.4
•
S/LINK™ 1.0
•
TSC System 3.2
•
Transfermation™ 1.3
What's New ?
• S/LINK file
translation software that connects your Synclavier® or PostPro™ to the
Macintosh World.
• TSC System 3.2,
which enables your Synclavier or PostPro to be connected via SCSI to your
Macintosh for fast file transfers and implements new features and bug fixes.
• Editview 3.4.1,
which has been modified to allow for differences on later Macs running System
7.1 or later.
NB. Due to the policy of rapidly
superceding Mac models some problems may be encountered on late models.
What is S/LINK ?
S/LINK is an audio
file transfer and translation utility.
S/Link is the foundation for a new series of software. S/Link connects
the Synclavier and PostPro world to the macintosh world by allowing transfer of
files and sequences between the two. S/LINK 1.0 is included free with Release
3.2 software.
S/LINK 1.0 can
translate the following formats:
•
AIFF
•
AIFF-C
•
Direct-To-Disk™ cues
•
QuickTime audio
•
Sound Designer I and II files
•
Synclavier sound files
•
Synclavier optical files
S/LINK 2.0 in addition
can translate;
•
.Wav
•
SoundEdit®
•
IFF/8SVX
•
.snd/.au
•
VOC
•
MOD
•
Sound resource for Macintosh® (Types 1 and 2)
•
CD-ROM
•
CD-Audio (with compatible CD-ROM Drive)
•
OMF-Interchange®
S/LINK 2.0 translates
files from these systems
•
Macintosh
•
Microsft Windows™
•
Amiga™
•
NeXT®
•
Sun®
•
SoundBlaster™
•
MS-DOS®
•
Silicon Graphics®
•
Atari®
•
Digidesign®
•
DAWN™
•
Synclavier
•
PostPro
S/LINK 1.0 comes free
with Release 3.2 software. S/LINK 2.0 is a stand alone package for the
Macintosh that is available separately.
What is TSC System
3.2 ?
TSC System 3.2 is an
upgrade to NED System 3.1 that allows your Synclavier or PostPro to be
connected via SCSI to S/LINK. With 3.2 you can operate S/LINK in an
"on-line" fashion, translating and transferring files from your
Synclavier or PostPro while simultaneously operating the RTP, Editview or other
software.
TSC System 3.2 also
implements:
•
Extended Direct-To-Disk project time fields
•
Expanded B-Page poly Directory Size
•
FastTrax™ removable drive support
•
SCSI retry for improved optical reliabilty
To allow S/LINK and
the Synclavier to work together on the SCSI bus, we have had to change the SCSI
id's of the Synclavier and the Direct-To-Disk computers. The ids now being
Synclavier =id6, the Direct-To-Disk =id3.
Because of these
changes, TSC System 3.2 is NOT compatible with any previous software.
(Although all previous
work such as sequences, cues, projects, timbres etc will still be read by 3.2)
!!! DO NOT RUN ANY PRE
3.2 SOFTWARE IN CONJUNCTION WITH RELEASE 3.2 !!!
If you choose to
revert to a previous RTP, you must completely re-install all software. All
programs, such as SED, SCRIPT, SFM
etc are effected by the SCSI change.
Installation
To install Release 3.2
on your Macintosh, first remove all Release 3.1 applications from your Mac.
Thsi is because the new software has the same name but different icons from the
previous release and the finder can get confused and corrupt files.
Insert the Floppy Disk
Applications 1.
Double click on the
Installer file. Click on the
Install button for automatic installation.
For installing
individual items at a later date simply click on the Custom button and select
the items you wish to install by shift clicking on each of them.
Follow the
instructions on screen. When installation is finished, insert the CONFIGURATION
DISK.
Locate the NED System
Folder which is inside the Mac System Folder.
Drag the Configuration
file from the floppy disk onto (into) the NED Sytem Folder.
You must now restart
your Mac to run 3.2 software.
To install TSC System
3.2 onto your Synclavier hardware, insert the WINCHESTER INSTALLATION DISK
floppy and press the boot button.
If you have a DTD also press its reset button now.
Follow the on screen
instructions.
NB: When finished
restart the Synclavier from the 3.2 bootload disk. Go to the Ready prompt and
run Configur.
Ensure everything is
correct. Change the poly voice setting to either mono or poly (the opposite to
what is shown) and hit return. Type OK at the prompt and then Q to quit. The
machine will restart. Now go again to the Ready prompt and change the voices
back to the setting they should be (mono or poly). This is to get around a bug
in 3.2 software at installation.
S/LINK
First decide whether
you are going to use S/LINK in "on line" or "off line"
mode.
Setting up for
"on-line" means connecting the Mac to the Synclavier SCSI buss and
starting both machines.
See the SCSI Set-up
Guide for important information.
Setting up for
"off-line" involves detaching the drives you wish to access with
S/LINK and attaching them to your mac. This is especially easy if you have
removable drives and a remote docking bay.
S/LINK will work in
standalone mode as well. This means that it does not need any Synclavier drives
attached at all. It will carry out file conversions on any formats that are
present on your Mac disks. If you think you will be using S/LINK as standalone
you will probably find that the extra features of S/LINK 2.0 of more benefit to
you.
This can be purchased
seperately if required.
To start S/LINK double
click on the application in the finder.
The first time you run
S/LINK, you will see a window displaying the devices you have connected to your
Macintosh represented as folders. You will see the message that S/LINK is
scanning the SCSI buss for devices.
All devices S/LINK
finds will be displayed. If a device shows in grey, it is because it is a
device that cannot be read. If items you expect to see do not appear, refer to
the SCSI Set-up Guide.
S/LINK uses a
folder/file system for all devices, very similar to the Mac Finder. To open a
folder and see its contents, double click the items folder icon. A new window
will be open displaying the items contents.
If you have attached a
DTD drive "off-line" there may be a pause while S/LINK starts the DTD
drive(s) and initialises the DTD translators.
Windows
You can size and move
windows. S/LINK will remember where your windows last were and re-open them in
these locations when you next open them. Only the last 64 windows opened
positions are remembered. Also when you restart S/LINK it remembers which
windows were opened last time you used S/LINK.
If you widen the
window past the TYPE colomn (by dragging the lower right hand box to the right)
you will see the sample rate, channel, length, sample width, and sample format
information. The first time you do this the drawing will be much slower as
S/LINK has to open each of these files to determine what type of file it is.
S/LINK remembers this data until you close the window. Files that are not
recognised sound files will be displayed as documents and cannot be opened or
auditioned. (In S/LINK 2.0 there is the facility to audition any file
regardless. This can have interesting results with pictures etc. )
The last column
displays a files sample format. Two formats are common on the Mac. Offset and
Twos-compliment. Most professional sampling is encoded in twos-compliment. All
Synclavier and PostPro files are encoded this way. Whenever files are
transferred with S/LINK (except for 8-bit QuickTime), Conversion to twos
compliment is performed.
You can sort the
window by any column. To sort, click on its heading. You will see the window
redrawn in the new order and the heading underlined.
Folder Files
Some files, such as
OMF files, have multiple elements in them. These files have a special double
folder icon.
You can double click
the file to open a window displaying the files contents. (In this release only
OMF files can be read this way - S/LINK 2.0 can handle other formats).
When you drag a
folder-file to another directory, a real folder is created with the name of the
folder-file. The contents of the folder-file are then transferred into the new
folder.
Selecting Items
To select a file point
and click on its icon once. You can select multiple items by shift-clicking or
by dragging a rectangle around the icons. Selected items appear darkened. You
can unselect by shift clicking on individual items. You can use the up and down
arrow keys to move between files. You can type the first letter, or more
letters and S/LINK will locate the file most closely named to your typing.
Auditioning Files
• You can audition any
file format that S/LINK supports through the Mac audio system. (Whatever is
selected with SOUND in control panels). To audition , select the file(s) and
press F12 or Spacebar. To stop audition press F10 or Return. To select only one
file for audition when a group have been selected use the F13 key.
• Quality of
auditioning depends on the Mac and Diskdrives. You may have glitches with high
sample rate, or stereo sound files. If the Mac gets behind fetching audio data
the software plays silence while it waits. This gives a CD skip type effect. If
your Mac disk is badly fragmented or full you may hear glitches due to
excessive drive 'seeks'. You can use a disk de-fragmenter software package to
cure this, readily available from
Mac dealers.
• In this release data
rates from DTD "on-line", 12" Opticals, older Magneto Optical
drives and slower CD-ROM drives is slow enough to cause glitching while
auditioning.
The Mac with Sound
Manager 3.0 installed, supports stereo sampling rates up to 65khz. Sound files
sampled above this rate will be played at 65khz. An '*' will appear next to
their rate to indicate the Mac hardware cannot play them correctly. IF a sound
file is multichannel, then only the first two channels will be auditioned.
Transferring Files
To transfer an item,
select it and drag it to another folder or window, and drop it.
The transfer window
will open showing you your choices for transfer.
Transfer Formats shows
all possible formats you can select. To select, click next to the format of
your choice. Dragging a file onto a Synclavier device will automatically select
the correct format for that device.
You can change the
sample rate of the file you are transferring by clicking the box and typing in
the new rate. All rates are supported (up to 100khz) but conversion can be time
consuming with large sound files, from 2 to 8 times real time depending on the
Mac being used.
You can convert the
sample width to either 8 or 16 bit.
You can rename the new
file that will be saved, however if you are transferring more than one file
(batch transferring) then the original names will be kept. If you transfer a
file to the Synclavier the software
will automatically reduce the name to 8 characters, it will take the first four
and the last four of the name and eliminate spaces.
To transfer click on
the Transfer button, or hit return.
During transfer a
progress window will open giving percentage complete info for each file. A bar
shows overall transfer information.
In this release only
audio is transferred. Future releases of S/LINK will be able to read other non
audio information.
If you transfer to the
DTD you should enter a destination track, the default is track 1. Multi track
transfers will start on the track you specify and automatically use the next
track for recording. If there is not enough room on a track , an error message
will be displayed.
New Folders
You can create new
folders on any devices that support this function. These are Mac drives
(excluding CD-ROM), W0:, W1: and the DTD. On the DTD the new folder becomes a
new project. To create a new folder click the folder button at the top of the
window displaying the device where you want the new folder to be.
You will be prompted
for a name.
You can select several
items and drag them into the new folder icon. This will also prompt you for a
new name, create a new folder by that name and copy all selected items into
this new folder.
For Synclavier folders
you must specify a size for this new folder in Kilobytes NOT sectors.
eg: MYFOLDER, 20
Creates a new folder -
MYFOLDER - of 20K. if you do not specify a size a default of 300K will apply.
For DTD folders
(projects) you can specify a name, size (in minutes per track), and a sample
rate in Khz seperated by commas.
eg: My Project, 10,
44.1
Would create a new
project called My Project, 10 minutes long at 44.1Khz. Only whole minutes can
be specified. The default size if you forget to specify is 1 minute at 50Khz.
Trash
You can throw items in
the Trash just like in the finder. You are asked if you are sure.
NOTE: S/LINK's trash
is not like the finders. It is NOT UNDO-ABLE. Once put there they are gone forever.
Update
If you wish to update
S/LINK use the update arrow icon. This forces S/LINK to re-read the current
window. This is useful if a program has saved a file to the open folder and so
S/LINK was not aware of it.
The window will be
redrawn and updated. Pressing Up-Date in the Opening S/LINK window will cause
S/LINK to rescan the SCSI bass. You should do this if you have added a new
device, or mounted a new volume (optical or floppy etc).
Tempus™ Prefs
Your S/LINK
preferences will be saved in a file called Tempus Prefs which is stored in the
System Folder Preferences. If for
any reason S/LINK cannot be opened try deleting this file. All window positions
previously used will be lost and have to be repositioned and resized to suit
your workstyle.
OMF Files
In this release the
OMF library is very slow. You will see this when openeing an OMF file with
large segments of video, or multiple audio elements. This has been greatly
changed in S/LINK 2.0
12" and
Magneto Opticals
S/LINK 1.0 supports
reading of opticals only. S/LINK 2.0 provides the ability to write to and copy
between Optical drives including full category support.
S/LINK 1.0 Known
Bugs / Feature Requests
DTD stereo files will
not audition without glitching
Accessing the DTD
requires a large amount of Mac memory to be assigned to S/LINK - at least 1mb.
In practise it has
been found better to make S/LINK as large as possible using the Get info option
within the Mac finder.
Cannot rename files or
folders.
Also incorrectly reads
the size of some Synclavier folders, thereby refusing to write a soundfile into
it as it thinks there is not enough room.
Transfer of OMF to OMF
crashes due to fault in OMF toolkit.
OMF transfers eat a
little memory each transfer
Transfer of DTD cues
wider than the DTD configuration crashes the Mac
OMF translators use
large amounts of memory. Set application size at least 1mb preferably more.
Please read the above
carefully before asking for help. S/LINK technical support helpline is
(USA) +1 603 448 5550
- e-mail: support@synclavier.com