A problem with sound in Linux

[Scott Rossi]

> I've been noticing that in a good number of soundcards (including mine, a SB
> Live! with OSS driver), using "play somesound.au" or "play audioclip
> somesound.au" results a garbled audio output. There's nothing wrong with the
> audio files, and I can even play them perfectly in a console or terminal
> emulator, using "xanim somesound.au" or "play somesound.au". If I use the wav
> format, I got the same result.
> 
> Curiously, the only way I had found to play correctly those files in MetaCard
> is using something like "start player somesound".
> 
> Does somebody know why the play command does not work well in MetaCard with
> some soundcards, even though 'xanim' is up and running? Is there a
> way to solve it without having to create a player for each audio file?

You might try checking the sample rates of the problem files.  MC's built-in
playback favors "standard" sampling rates of 11k, 22k and 44k, at 8 and 16
bits.  Also, playback seems to be even more finicky when it comes to .au
formatted sounds.  I don't have any specific recipes for problems, but
apparently it is "unusual" to have a 16 bit, 22k .au file, and MC will often
not be able to handle it.

The reason a player can handle these sounds is because (as I understand it)
player objects hand off playback to the multimedia resources of the host
system (QuickTime, Window Media Player, etc) and these technologies are much
more forgiving of varying sampling rates/bit depths.

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director

Tactile Media, Multimedia & Design
Email: scott at tactilemedia.com
Web: www.tactilemedia.com