Wave sound files allow GPSS to tell you where you are, how far to your destination, and other information audially.
Wave files (.WAV) have roots that go back to 1985, but the actual WAV format came to be only in 1991 or so. It is a means of storing sounds digitally on computer.
Yes, WAV files have been superseded by MP3 files, which offer good compression with good sound fidelity. However, GPSS needs to stay with WAV, a kind of lingua franca that many forms of Windows can handle.
Recording your own sounds and words
If you want to extend your GPSS functionality by recording your own WAV files, it would probably be best to begin with the Sound Recorder application that comes free with Windows.
You need a microphone, an ability to read documentation to the point where you can get your computer to record from the microphone, and a little background in "bits," or sampling rates.
Sampling rate (disk space versus quality)
The fewer bits of sampling, the lousier the sound - but the less space the sound file takes on disk. CD-quality stereo sound at 16-bit resolution and 44 kHz sample rates will take a huge amount of space.
You can probably get by with 8-bit, mono, 11,025 kHz sampling rates - possibly lower, say 8,000 kHz, though that's pretty bad... things sound muffled and fuzzy.
If you're just embarking on this kind of activity, you could do worse than read the help file with Sound Recorder. It covers the basics.
Available sound editors
Sound Recorder is a little hard to use. For example, to permit pause-free speech, you need to trim the silent sections that inevitably are part of your recorded words before and after you actually say something into the microphone. Sound Recorder will trim these bits, but you can't tell exactly where the trimming process will begin or end.
More capable sound editors feature a cursor or vertical bar that you can place exactly on the beginning or end of recorded speech while trimming. Some even have auto-trim utilities.
Editors can also normalize volume. Some editors use different terms for normalization: bringing the maximum volume of a given file to a pre-set level that you specify. When you normalize, the loudest sections of every file you record will be at the same level.
If you tend to change how loud you say parts of a phrase within the same file - that is, you are bothered by wide variations of volume in a single WAV file - you can also add compression. Compression automatically increases the loudness of soft sections and/or decreases the volume of loud passages, bringing the entire phrase to the same level.
If you want these greater controls over your sounds, there are a couple of options
There is a free sound editor, Audacity, but it is geek-ware and you pretty much have to be a gear-head to install and use it. Like most geek-ware, it is being continuously upgraded.
Probably the simplest sound record/editor product is Goldwave (in October, 2004, $US 45 or so). Goldwave has plenty of capability.
By Dave Gehman
© Copyright 2004, Robin Lovelock
Send changes, suggestions to Dave Gehman