[Ardour-Users] How to give a sound "presentation"?

[John Emmas]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Christopher"
Subject: Re: [Ardour-Users] How to give a sound "presentation"?
>
> I recently ran into the same problem you have, and while I never found
> a good solution - I thought I'd at least share my experience.
>
> [ Snip... ]
>
> Anyway, I never quite found what I was looking for, and I'm sure one
> of these days I'll be designing/running sound for someone else, so
> please let me know if you ever find anything usable!
>
Actually, there is something suitable but it's probably not worth mentioning
after all this time.  Many years ago I was involved in a project called
'AudioFile'.  It was in effect the world's first DAW although it ran on
proprietory hardware (not Mac or PC etc).

The very first implementation of AudioFile was intended for radio stations
and theatres.  At the bottom of the screen it had a row of 8 'trigger'
buttons.  Above each button you could build a stack of sound clips to be
played one after the other.  For example, in a radio station you could have
a couple of stacks for the playlist, a stack for news items, a stack for
adverts, another stack for jingles etc.  Pressing the appropriate button
would play a sound in that stack and then jump down to the next one and wait
to be triggered again.  For Ferenc's use, he could build stacks
corresponding to each room, with the sounds arranged in the order in which
they're to be played.  You could even move a cursor up & down each stack to
revise the order at run time.

AudioFile was made by a company called AMS Neve but AFAIK, it's pretty much
died a death outside the UK (AudioFile - not AMS Neve).  Most people outside
of the UK have never even heard of AudioFile (even if they work in the audio
industry).  However, the upside is that you can often pick up an old
AudioFile for next to nothing.

The basic principle was based on those multi-bank cartridge players that
used to be found in radio stations.  It was just an extended version, with
greater capacity and the ability to edit etc.

Again, AFAIK, those old cart machines have long since been consigned to
history.  But radio stations are alive and well, so something must have
replaced them.  If you can find out what's replaced them, that's probably
what you need.

John