Re Templates: Can templates span more than one screen width? Whenever I use the template button to try to use a recording as a template, only the current screen is captured. (It is much to short to capture even one full line of a song.)
Also, although the “Open” button has an option to load a “Pitch” file, there is no corresponding option to save a “Pitch” file. Is this intended to support saving templates in a more compact format than as WAV files?
Sing & See Professional (Version 1.5.1)
Ray Artz
Yes, in this version 1.5.1 the template can only last for one screen width…
The good thing about this is that when the pitch trace wraps around after one screen, the template is still there. So if you’ve got a short exercise you can repeat it several times without having to stop and start the program.
The “Pitch” file is saved when you save the sound file – if you look where the WAV file is stored, you will see a second file with the same name but with extension “.csv” instead of extension “.wav” (however if your system is like most Windows PCs and hides extensions by default, these will appear in your Explorer as “Comma Separated Value” files)
The “CSV” file format can be read into Excel or other spreadsheet programs, and you can also save them easily. It is simply a text file with a column of numbers representing the pitch values in the recording. The numbers are in semitones, with 0 equal to A 440 (A4).
When you open a “Pitch” file or do menu “File->Open Template File” it allows you to choose a “.CSV” file and then it displays it as a template.
Unfortunately, at present you can’t save the actual template – you can only save the pitch data (ie the blue line) after recording or replaying.
We’re working on improving the template functionality – any and all suggestions for what you’d like it to do are welcome!
Thank you for your response. I think I now better understand how to use S&S . As it turns out, I am able to accomplish what I wanted to do with templates, namely creating and using scrollable (multi-screen-width) templates, using the current capabilities of S&S Pro 1.5.1. I will make a separate post to the “Teaching Usage” portion of this blog describing that in context [Edit: See Ray’s post here]. Here, I will comment on some of the related S&S behaviors that were not obvious from the current (as of 9 Dec 2011) on-line Help documentation, and make a few suggestions regarding documentation and implementation. These suggestions are not intended as criticisms of your fine product.
(1) Menu item “File: Open WAVE File”. (This appears to have exactly the same functionality as Toolbar Button “Open”.) The “WAVE” files are implemented as “*.wav” files, aka “WAV” files. The documentation regarding the Menu item states “Sing and See only replays the first few 10 seconds of long files.” I don’t think that is accurate.
(2) Menu item “File: Open Template File”. This allows one to open Pitch files implemented as “*.csv” files, aka “CSV” files, for use as multi-screen-width (scrolling) templates. (THANKS!, this supports my intended usage!)
(3) Menu item “File: Save sound As…”. As you pointed out, though it is not currently documented, this actually creates two files: a Sound file in WAV format and a Template file in CSV format. These two files represent, respectively, the current playable sound and the current (multi-screen scrollable) Pitch Display (blue line). (BTW, I do not think the behavior is any different depending on whether the “Save as type” option in the pop-up window is selected as “wav” or “all”. That is possibly confusing, but I realize you are using a standard Windows pop-up control.) It should also be noted that the file structure of the Template (CSV) file reflects the blue line as it appears in the display: if the Menu option “Menu: View: Pause on Breaks” was checked when the sound was recorded, then breaks WILL NOT appear in either the display or the saved CSV file. Conversely, if the Menu option “Menu: View: Pause on Breaks” was NOT checked when the sound was recorded, then breaks WILL appear in both the display and the CSV file. The latter behavior will likely be preferred if one wants to later open the CSV file for use as a Template. The WAV file is not affected; it reflects sound and silence as recorded.
(4) Menu item “View: Pause on Breaks”. The documentation states that this option affects the Pitch Trace Display, but does not state that it also affects the subsequent saving of a Pitch file.
(5) Toolbar Button “Template”: This turns the current (single screen-width) trace display into a Template for convenient immediate use. This Template cannot be saved in Version 1.5.1.
Suggestions:
(1) The use of the terms “Ptich File”, “Sound (file)”, WAVE file, and Template should be more consistent in the menus and related documentation. Also, the Save and Open menu items should “parallel” to avoid confusion; in particular, a single selection should not create two saved files. I suggest “Save Sound File”, “Save Pitch File”, “Open Sound File”, and “Open Pitch File” as appropriate items, but you may have other naming preferences. (BTW, one reason for not saving both Sound and Pitch files with a single command, apart from avoiding confusion, is that the user who only wants to save Pitch files for use as Templates will not clutter his disk with large WAV files.)
(2) The documentation regarding File menu items should state that Sound files and Pitch files are implemented as WAV and CSV files, respectively.
(3) Optionally, some information regarding the internal format of the CSV files (as you described them above) could be provided in a technical appendix to the Help system. It could be useful to users who wish to create Templates for their own use using a text editor or program such as Excel. (I am thinking here of creating templates for portomento pitch transitions such as Exercise I-6 in “How to Sing and See, Singing Pedagogy in the Digital Era”, which may not be easily created using simple music notation programs.)
(3) Besides being clear about the actions of the File menu item commands, the documentation should state the effect of menu item “View: Pause on Breaks” on subsequent saving of Pitch files. (The documentation regarding “Save Pitch File” should also make note of that.)
Again, thank you for a helpful timely response and a fine product!
Thanks for the feedback and good suggestions! Hopefully you’ll see some of these real soon now…