32-bit sound software

Wave, Gen, you’re on RISCOSitory!

A couple of old applications for generating RISC OS sounds have been updated for 32-bit compatibility by Jon Scott.

The first of these, announced by Jon on the RISC OS Open forums as a re-release of a very old voice module generator, is Wavegen, an application that can create perodic sounds based on mathematical formula such as a simple sine or complex harmonic wavforms.

Originally written by Felix Andrew in 1988, WaveGen presents the user with a window in which a waveform can be drawn. A menu allows a number of default waveforms to start the drawing off, or a formula can be used. The waveform can then be saved as a relocatable voice module, thus allowing it to be used in much the same way as any of the voice modules provided by default in all versions of RISC OS.

In the !Help file supplied with the application, Jon explains that “the freehand waveform generation is not as good as the old version but currently I don’t want to spend much time on it, as it seems unlikley anyone will really use it to create sound modules.” A quick play suggests that what he seems to be referring to is that, when attempting to draw (or edit) waveforms in this way, the user needs to move the mouse extremely slowly and very steadily while drawing – too slowly to be truly practical.

The second of the two updates, which Jon also announced on the RISC OS Open forums, is an update to SigGen, an audio signal generator, originally written by Iain Castle-Anderson.

Both applications can be found on a website maintained by another RISC OS Open forum user, David Saunders – but if you are visiting David Saunders’ website to download the software using a Windows machine, be aware that some anti-virus software might give you a warning that the site is considered dangerous. This is probably a result of something else on CWahi.net, which is the free web hosting provider used by David, but if you have any doubts consider using your RISC OS computer to visit the site and download the software instead.

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