The
Recorder Help Page
This is the help page for the Recorder tool,
which is part of the KarVCD toolset. The purpose of this tool is to record the
sound present at the input of your sound card to a WAVE file. It can also play
a MIDI, KAR or WAVE file while recording. If the lyrics embedded in a KAR file
are available, they will be shown as well.
The Recorder Dialog
Let us take
a look at the MIDI converter window fields and buttons:
At the top
of the Recorder dialog there is the Playback group of controls with the
following elements:
¨
File type. These two radio buttons let you
choose the file to play either the WAVE file or the MIDI/KAR file selected in
the main window. You can also opt for not using playback at all.
¨
File name. This field shows the file to play.
¨
Browse. This button lets you load another
file to play.
Bellow the Playback
group there is the Show lyrics group with three radio buttons. These let
you choose the type of lyrics window to show while the playback file is being
played.
Bellow the Show
lyrics group there is the Output file group of controls with the
following elements:
¨
File name. This field shows the file that
will be created during the recording process.
¨
Browse. This button lets you select
another file to record.
Follows a
description of the remaining elements:
¨
Progress bar. This control shows the progress as
the playback file is being played. This will only be shown when there is a
playback file.
¨
Start. This button initiates the
recording process.
¨
Stop. This button stops the playing process.
¨
Play. This button lets you hear the output file
that was created during the recording process.
¨
Status. This field shows you the time
already played versus the total playing time when there is a file being played;
otherwise it will show the time already recorded.
¨
Help. This button shows you the file that you are
now reading.
¨
Close. This button closes the Recorder
Dialog and returns you to the Main Window.
The Lyrics Window
When KarVCD
is playing a file and it has access to the lyrics corresponding to that file,
it will show you the lyrics in a window. You can choose between a normal window
and full screen. The normal window looks like this:
The full
window has the same elements in the client area but doesn’t have a title bar or
borders.
The lyrics
window has four lines of text. The text is initially shown in white characters.
As the music corresponding to a word or syllable is played, that word or
syllable is shown in red. When all the words in a line are red, playing starts
at the next line.
Playing
starts at the third line of text. As that line of text is completed, playing
resumes at the fourth line. At the end of that line, playing continues at the
first line, after which it continues on the second line, and so on.
At the
transition from line 3 to 4, if the first and second lines have already been
played, they will be updated with the new words that follow the fourth line.
Similarly, during the transition from line 1 to line 2, the third and fourth
lines will be updated with new text.
Whenever
there is a part of a song that is purely instrumental, the window will show a
delay bar instead of the first and second lines of text. The third and forth
lines will show the text that follows the instrumental. The delay bar shows in
a continuous way how much time there is before the end of the instrumental:
Initially the delay bar is all white; as the instrumental progresses, part of
the delay bar will be painted red; when all of the delay bar is red, the
instrumental is ending.
The lyrics
window, when not in full-screen mode, is resizable to any dimensions that you
want. As you resize the window, the text will be resized accordingly. If a line
of text doesn’t fit in the window, the text will scroll horizontally, as each
word is being played.
Operation
The operation of the Player is very simple: You
select the playback and output files, choose the type of lyrics window you want
and hit Start.
When there
is a playback file, the recorder assumes that the file to record has the same
length. Therefore it will stop recording when the playback file reaches the
end. When there is no playback file, you have to stop the recorder manually.
The
recorder will record any sound that is present at the input of your sound card.
It is up to you to configure the Windows sound mixer (that’s the small
loudspeaker icon on your system tray) to control what sounds reach the input.
This varies from system to system but usually you can select the microphone
input and the line in input.
Some sound
cards let you record the sound that they produce when playing a MIDI/KAR file.
This feature can be used as an alternative to the KarVCD MIDI converter, as
another way of converting MIDI/KAR files to WAVE, using your sound card
synthesizer. In this way you can also use any other Windows defined
synthesizer, internal or external, soft- or hardware based.
The ability
to playback a WAVE file while recording another depends on your sound card
hardware. This is referred to as “full-duplex” in the list of features. The
majority of modern sound cards have this capability.
The
Recorder will work with the files that were selected in the main window. You
can also load new files in the Recorder tool. In that case, the main window
will reflect that fact.
The
Recorder will use the hardware devices selected in the Options Dialog. To play WAVE files it will use
the Wave output device, to play MIDI/KAR files will use the MIDI
output device and finally for recording it will use the Wave input
device. This allows you to use any Windows defined device, internal or
external.
Whenever
you playback a KAR file with embedded lyrics, the Recorder can show you the
lyrics in the Lyrics window. You can choose between a normal window and full
screen. You can also disable the Lyrics window altogether.
When you
playback a WAVE file and there is a KAR file loaded as well, the Recorder
assumes that the WAVE file corresponds to the rendering of the KAR file and
shows you the lyrics just like when you play the KAR file.
When the
lyrics window is showing, normal or full-screen, hitting any keyboard key will
cause the window to be closed and the playing/recording to stop.
When you
close the Recorder Dialog with the Close button, the program will set
the output file as the WAVE file in the main window. Before doing this, the
program makes sure that the output file does in fact exist.
Feedback
Comments, suggestions and bug reports are welcome and should be sent to fadevelop@clix.pt
This page last modified 2003-07-28 - Copyright
© 2000-2003 ACE