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SOX: Sound eXchange
SOX (also known as Sound eXchange) translates sound samples between different
file formats, and optionally performs various sound effects.
This release understands:
o Raw files in various binary formats
o Raw textual data
o Microsoft .WAV files
o PCM, u-law, a-law
o MS ADPCM (Read only)
o IMA ADPCM (Read only)
o MAUD files
o Sound Blaster .VOC files
o IRCAM SoundFile files
o SUN .au files
o PCM, u-law, a-law
o G7xx ADPCM files (read only)
o mutant DEC .au files
o Apple/SGI AIFF files
o CD-R (music CD format)
o Macintosh HCOM files
o Sounder files
o NeXT .snd files
o Soundtool (DOS) files
o Psion (palmtop) A-law files
The sound effects include:
o Channel Averaging
o Band-pass filter
o Chorus effect
o Cut out loop samples
o Add an echo
o Add a sequence of echos
o Apply a flanger effect
o Apply a high-pass filter
o Apply a low-pass filter
o Display a list of loops in a file
o Add masking noise to a signal
o Apply a phaser effect
o Convert from stereo to mono
o Change sampling rates using several different algorithms.
o Apply a reverb effect
o Reverse the sound samples (to search for Satanic messages ;-)
o Convert from mono to stereo
o Display general stats on a sound sample
o Add the world-famous Fender Vibro-Champ effect
Big news! Lots of new effects have been added. This includes most the
popular "Guitar Effects" talked about in the same named FAQ available.
The 'resample' and 'polyphase' effect does high-grade signal rate
changes using real signal theory. Yes, it's very slow. There seems
to be a small problem with aliasing with 'resample' currently.
More big news! Sample loops are now supported in a few
file formats: SMP and AIFF. WAV and VOC needs it. I don't know
what other formats actually know about sampler notes & loops.
(To make a loop, you need a waveform editor that knows about
them and has special features.)
History:
This is the 12th release, Patchlevel 16 of the Sound Tools.
Sox was originally written and maintained by Lance Norskog but
unfortunetly he has stopped maintaining it since 1995. I, Chris
Bagwell (cbagwell@sprynet.com), have started maintaining it since
1996 to the present. Lance may take supporting it back up in the future
but until that time I will keep pushing its development forward.
Caveats:
SOX is intended as the Swiss Army knife of sound processing tools. It
doesn't do anything very well, but sooner or later it comes in very handy.
SOX is really only usable day-to-day if you hide the wacky options with
one-line shell scripts.
Installing:
Unless your using a precompiled binary version, you will need to use
the Amiga, DOS, OS9, or Unix Makefile as appropriate to compile SOX.
Please read the Makefile's for several options that may need to be customized
for your setup. See the INSTALL file for more detailed instructions.
Now, read TIPS, CHEAT.eft and CHEAT. These give a background on how
SOX deals with sound files and how to convert this format
to that format, and apply various effects with examples for the most
popular formats.
SOX uses file suffices to determine the nature of a sound sample file.
If it finds the suffix in its list, it uses the appropriate read
or write handler to deal with that file. You may override the suffix
by giving a different type via the '-t type' argument. See the manual
page for more information.
SOX has an auto-detect feature that attempts to figure out
the nature of an unmarked sound sample. It works very well.
This is the 'auto' file format.
I hope to inspire the creation of a common base of sound processing
tools for computer multimedia work, similar to the PBM toolkit for
image manipulation.
Sound Tools may be used for any purpose. Source
distributions must include the copyright notices. Binary
distributions must include acknowledgements to the creators.
Files are copyright by their respective authors.
If you have bug fixes/enhancements, please send it to me as I would like
to coordinate the releases. Please document your changes. I don't
possess every kind of computer currently sold, and SOX is now beyond
the phase where I can understand and test most of your contributions.
The majority of SOX features and source code are contributed
by you the user. Thank you very much for making SOX a success!
Creator:
Lance Norskog thinman@meer.net (inactive currently)
Mantainer:
Chris Bagwell cbagwell@sprynet.com
Contributors:
Juergen Mueller jmueller@uia.ua.ac.be
chorus, echo, echos, flanger, phaser, and reverb
effects.
Guido Van Rossum guido@cwi.nl
AU, AIFF, AUTO, HCOM, reverse,
many bug fixes
Jef Poskanzer jef@well.sf.ca.us
original code for u-law and delay line
Bill Neisius bill%solaria@hac2arpa.hac.com
DOS port, 8SVX, Sounder, Soundtool formats
Apollo fixes, stat with auto-picker
Rick Richardson rick@digibd.com
WAV and SB driver handlers, fixes
David Champion dgc3@midway.uchicago.edu
Amiga port
Pace Willisson pace@blitz.com
Fixes for ESIX
Leigh Smith leigh@psychokiller.dialix.oz.au
SMP and comment movement support.
AIFF Loop/MIDI support
David Sanderson dws@ssec.wisc.edu
AIX3.1 fixes
(Note that to my knowledge AIX on RS/6000s has
NO SUPPORT for playing any sort of sound file,
so please don't write to me any more to ask
"how do I play sound files on my AIX box". I
ported sox to AIX solely to use it to translate
between sound file formats.)
Glenn Lewis glewis@pcocd2.intel.com
AIFF chunking fixes
Brian Campbell brianc@quantum.qnx.com
QNX port and 16-bit fixes
Chris Adams gt8741@prism.gatech.edu
DOS port fixes
John Kohl jtkohl@kolvir.elcr.ca.us
BSD386 port, VOC stereo support
Ken Kubo ken@hmcvax.claremont.edu
VMS port, VOC stereo support
Frank Gadegast <phade@cs.tu-berlin.de>
Microsoft C 7.0 & C Borland 3.0 ports
David Elliot <dce@scmc.sony.com>
CD-R format support
David Sears <dns@essnj3.essnjay.com>
Linux support
Tom Littlejohn <tlit@seq1.loc.gov>
Raw textual data
Boisy G. Pitre boisy@microware.com
OS9 port
Sun Microsystems, Guido Van Rossum
CCITT G.711, G.721, G.723 implementation
Graeme Gill graeme@labtam.labtam.oz.au
A-LAW format, Good .WAV handling,
avg channel expansion
Allen Grider grider@hfsi.hfsi.com
VOC stereo mode, WAV file handling
Michel Fingerhut Michel.Fingerhut@ircam.fr
Upgrade 'sf' format to current IRCAM format.
Float file support.
Chris Knight
Achimedes Acorn support
Richard Caley R.Caley@ed.ac.uk
Psion WVE handler
Lutz Vieweg lkv@mania.RoBIN.de
MAUD (Amiga) file handler
Tim Gardner timg@tpi.com
Windows NT port for V7
Jimen Ching jiching@wiliki.eng.hawaii.edu
Libst porting bugs
Lauren Weinstein lauren@vortex.com
DOS porting, scripts, professional use
Chris Bagwell cbagwell@sprynet.com
OSS and Sun players, bugfixes, ADPCM support,
patch collection and maintance.
(your name could be here, too)
(I've probably lost a few, and several people fixed
the same bugs.)