Seamless Audio Loops in Rev

[Scott Rossi]

On 1/13/04 12:43 PM, "Ken Norris" <pixelbird at interisland.net> wrote:

> Well, of course you can loop a sound. The "seamless" part has to do with
> editing the sound properly.

Of course.  But the word you may have missed is "reliable".

First of all, the only way to come close to reliable looping is with
(imported) audioClips.

If you click on the menubar or a menu button, looping of the audioclip will
stop until the mouse is released.

If you click and drag a stack by its titlebar, looping of the audioclip will
stop until the mouse is released.

Running additional scripts and/or moving images around will sometimes
introduce delays within loops.

If you want to loop an MP3 file or some other non-WAV formatted file cross
platform, the only way to play this format is via a player (QT) and QT
inherently introduces pauses between clips.  Not to mention the fact that
there is a bug in Rev that prevents looping within standalones (though not
within the IDE).

Sure, you could say "Don't use MP3s, use WAV files."  But then you're forced
to deliver stacks that can run up to 10 times the filesize (or more) of
stacks that rely on MP3s.

It is virtually impossible to sequentially play different clips in a longer
loop without gaps.

And to run slightly astray of the original subject: even if looping
audioClips does work acceptably, controlling the clip independently of other
sounds is problematic.  AFAIK, the only way to adjust the volume of the clip
is to adjust the entire system volume, which affects all other sounds.  Of
course you could adjust the playLoudness of a player object, but then these
objects don't loop seamlessly.

BTW, setting the fileName of a player will often delay other events taking
place within the stack.

So yes, you *can* loop a sound, if the *only* thing you want to do in a
stack is loop a sound.


> I have a number of sounds that loop "seamlessly", althought they didn't at
> first. I had to edit the start and end points of the sound to get it to loop
> with no apparent break.
> 
> This is no different than anything else with looping sound AFAIK.

As explained above, there's a little more to it than that.  In the testing I
was able to do yesterday evening, it appears that using Flash will allow
audio in a player to loop seamlessly in the above situations while allowing
some control over the player (though more testing is needed).  Additional
control might be gained by including more interactivity within the Flash
movie.  Regardless, using Flash was proposed as an option that may be useful
for folks requiring better audio performance.

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, Development & Design
-----
E: scott at tactilemedia.com
W: http://www.tactilemedia.com