Inconsistent Audio Playback

[Capoeirista]

Hi There

http://www.leevodra.com/sandbox/audioTest.html

This is the first time I've really dealt with audio of any duration. I'm doing the site for a hearing research group and there are all of these sounds that I'm putting onto buttons.

User clicks on a button and the sound plays. It's important that they play clearly and consistently each time.

Problem is that they don't.

There seems to be interference in ninety percent of the cases. It's in mono, but it seems that there's a shift, not between left and right, but like it's being played in a really echo-ey room. Sometimes it's really clear.

Has anyone run across this and does anyone know how to fix it?

Thanks,

Lee

[mickbrit55]

Hiya

I tried that site but the sound isn't really a good example. I can't tell if it's supposed to be like that. Can you post a better one?

Mick

[Capoeirista]

Thanks for replying.

Unfortuately, these are sounds that mimic what people with cochleal implants supposedly hear.

None of them sound normal.

What you can listen for is the difference between repeated playings. If you hit the button about twenty times, you'll hear a vast array of differences in the sound.

The cool thing is that you'll start to understand what they're saying. (The brain's a weird and wonderful thing.)

What I'm wondering is whether there's a kind of moiré pattern going on between the sample frequency and the playback frequency.

I wonder why it isn't consistent.

A strategy I'm wondering about is, like when you scan to avoid a moiré pattern at over double the dot pitch, if there's a way that I can mess with the playback rate so that I don't get some kind of interference with the sound.

I don't know what the sampling rate for the .wav file is. I just imported them into flash. Is there a way to find this out? The grad student who did the experiment is currently unreachable.

Is there a control panel for this?

I appreciate any assistance a great deal.

Thanks,

Lee

[Capoeirista]

doh!

:-O

I noticed that when I held down the button the sound remained clean.

I had it play on press. So I wondered whether having it play on release would make a difference.

hmmm.......let's have a look....dum dee dum dee....

I don't know how this got there, but here's what I found.

on (press, release) {
gotoAndPlay("wavStart");
}

I feel like an idiot!

No wonder I was getting an echo! I can't believe I did this!

I should be out with my buddies instead of staying home and working on a Saturday night!

Thanks for having a listen anyway. I really appreciate it.

Thank you ! Thanks Thank you ! Thanks Thank you ! Thanks

Lee

[mickbrit55]

Hiya

No problem, I was going to suggest that lol!.

If you are going to be doing the same thing with a lot of sounds you may want to look at importing the sounds into Flash and attaching them to their own Sound() objects. This way they are a lot easier to control.

Good luck with the project

Mick

[Capoeirista]

My next project I will need to import sound objects. I'll have something like 500 to deal with. This is just a baby version of that site.

My dim memory from reading about them months ago is that you can keep them in an original format and import them into Flash on the fly. . .is that right?

Any good tutorials/books that you recommend?

Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.

Have a great day,

Lee

[mickbrit55]

Hiya

You certainly can. I take it that they will all be fairly short sound clips? But 500 is still going to take up a lot of space. Your best bet would be to convert the files to MP3 format. This makes for a smaller file size and it will allow Flash to stream the sounds, rather than loading them all in. This will make it fairly simple to implement. Does 500 sound files equate to 500 different buttons too? You may want to design a different interface for the user in that case.

This sounds like a very interesting project, and if you need any more help please feel free to email me and I will help you.

Mick

[Capoeirista]

Thanks!

It may be some months before I get a greenlight on the bigger project, but I will need help. I really appreciate the offer.

Where my mind boggles is in setting up for a large project like this one. I know that it need not be that huge a deal, but I've only done small sites that only imported text before. Things like dealing with an appropriate naming convention for the importation of files so that it's logical and allows for versatility and expansion. Setting things up so that they can scale is something I know that there are practices for, but really haven't run across them and haven't a clue about how to find information on them.

The Hearing Research Center where I do some work is a collection of really interesting laboratories. The people are fantastic and their research is very helpful. I really love this group. They're wonderful. You meet these people and immediately want to hug them.

I hope that all good things happen to you. Have a great day,

Thanks again,

Lee