Lab 6
Part 3

GoldWave

Links to Interesting Sounds
Features of GoldWave

Links to Interesting Sounds

GoldWave is essentially an elaborate applications program that incorporates all of the features of the programs which come with Windows NT, but is able to produce even more special effects. In order for you to get the full experience from this lab, you should download (i.e. copy from another site) a few different sounds that you find interesting. Here are some Web sites you might want to try (but feel free to find others):

If you have forgotten how to download sound files from the Web, please review Page 7 of Lab 3. Recall that the sound file must be in WAV format.

Features of GoldWave

Now that you've found some sounds, let's take a look at GoldWave. You will find Goldwave under "Cluster Applications". You'll notice that the program is comprised of two windows - the main program window, and the device controls.

Device Controls - this is the standard CD-type control setup we have been working with.

Main Goldwave window - this is where we select different parts of our sound file to perform various special effects on. Click on new in the upper-left corner, and then click on OK to get the default recording settings.

Take a moment to become familiar with the main window in Goldwave. Notice that when you drag the mouse across the sound wave (which should be a flat line right now), it highlights it. This is how you will select areas of your recording to use special effects on. Now, look in the effects menu. Most of the options there are relatively intuitive. If you select an effect without first highlighting some of the sound bar, then it will automatically affect the entire recording. Finally, notice the buttons right underneath the View and Tools menus. These are perhaps the most important buttons in the program. The Undo button will allow you to undo the effects of a menu choice, but you can only go back one step. You can cut and paste highlighted segments of your sound file, just as you would a normal text file. These allow you to reposition various parts of your song!

Load your sound file into GoldWave (select Open from the File menu, and pick the Radio Quality version). Familiarize yourself with the Device Controls, then experiment!

A few other important features you should be aware of:

Effects Menu - Playback Rate - this determines the quality of the sound you will hear back. The higher the number, the better (but the more storage space it will take should you choose to save it).
Effects Menu - Transpose - allows you to take your recording and make it start on different notes, thereby making it sound brighter or darker.
Effects Menu - Doppler - changes the pitch of the selection. It presents you with a graph, where you can drag the sound line to indicate the points at which you would like the pitch to be high and low.
Effects Menu - Reverse - makes the selection go backwards
Effects Menu - Silence - eliminates any sound from the selected area

Most of the others are self-explanatory. Remember: this lab is supposed to be fun for you. Be creative and experiment!

Create a 20-second sound file using GoldWave Features that you could not have created using the simple Sound Recorder effects, and save this file for submission. Your file should have at least two obviously different sources spliced together and one or more of GoldWave's effects. Your file should not be any larger than about 500KB, which means you should start with no better than a Radio Quality recording or a sound file from the Web of comparable size.

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