Multitrack Recording with Amadeus Pro
Special thanks to Martin Hairer for making significant enhancements favorable to VoiceOVer users.
To take advantage of these enhancements download the latest version of Amadeus Pro Which can be obtained from <http://www.hairersoft.com/Downloads/AmadeusPro.zip>
Changes are always being made so it is important to keep up with the latest versions.
When Amadeus pro is opened the following items are visible to the voiceover curser. Moving from left to right they are: Close button, minimize button, zoom button, The words untitled which will be replaced by the name of the project or file when it is saved, tool bar button, tool bar which can be interacted with to reveal a variety of buttons as well as the clock which provides the elapsed time when playing or recording a track or file, a scroll area which wen interacted with reveals the track table,, a horizontal scroll bar, , A group of numbers depicting the sampling rate being recorded, A check box to loop the playback,And a horizontal zoom slider.
Before editing with amadeus Pro some important concepts need to be understood. Amadeus Pro makes use of two cursors. They are the playback head and the insertion pointer. Both cursers will follow each other when moving through a file with the left and right arrows. However when playing a file if the right or left arrow is being used to move through the file only the playback head is being moved and the insertion pointer remains at the place where the file started.
An example of this behavior would be this. Press spacebar to start playing the file and press spacebar again to stop at the point where the selection should start. Note: the insertion pointer is still at the beginning of the file and the playback head is where the file was stopped. To start selecting audio a mark needs to be placed at the beginning of the selection. To do this the insertion pointer needs to be brought to the place where the selection starts. Press Command-Y to move the insertion pointer to the playback head. Press Command-Shift-m to place a mark at the beginning of the selection. Press spacebar to continue playing the file up to the point where the selection should end. If a large portion of audio needs to be selected the right arrow will move quickly through the file while it is playing. Press spacebar at the point where the selection should end. REmember, the insertion pointer has not come along for the ride and must be brought to the place where the selection ends. Press Command-Y to do this. Press Command-Shift-M to place a mark at the end of the selection. Now that the selected audio has been defined Press Command-left arrow to extend the selection from the end marker to the previous marker which was placed at the beginning of the selected area. The audio is now selected. To hear the selected audio press the spacebar. If this portion of audio is meant to be deleted press the letter e to hear what the file will sound like once the selection is gone. This is extremely helpful for editing music. To expand the selection to the left press the letter a. To contract it press the letter s. To expand the selection to the right press the letter f. To contract it press the letter d.
To delete press the backspace key. Once audio is selected effects can be applied such as equalization, compression or anything else that is available.
To start recording a single track press command-r. To record additional tracks press command-option-r.
To pause recording press SpaceBar.
To stop recording press Enter
To play from the beginning of the file press Tab.
To stop playback and move back to the beginning of the file press Tab while the file is playing.
When the file is stopped press Option-home to move to the beginning and Option-End to move to the end of the file.
To play the active track press Shift-Spacebar. The active track is the one that is selected or highlighted.
To gain access to the track table interact with the scroll area located to the right of the tool bar.
When the track table is open the following items are visible. From left to right they are a disclosure triangle which can be expanded or collapsed by pressing Voiceover-SpaceBar. This is strictly for visual use and allows the track to be seen or not seen on the screen. This has no effect on how VoiceOver perceives the information on the screen.
Next is an edit area which by default is empty. This is where the name of the track can be written.
Following the edit area is the word "Volume" and a horizontal slider that defaults to %100. This can be manipulated by using the up and down arrows.
Next is a check box with the label play. This allows a track to either play or when unchecked be muted.
After that is the word "playback" followed by a popup menu. REfer to the manual for a detailed explanation on it's function.
To change the active track do the following. Interact with the scroll area which is the track table by Pressing VoiceOver-Shift-down-arrow. Use VoiceOver keys left and right arrow to find the edit area with the track names. Use voiceover-up and down arrow to move through the names of the tracks until the desired track is found. Press the escape key to make this the active track. Pressing the letter "N" will also cycle through the tracks however nothing is spoken so it is not possible to know which track is active until shift-spacebar is pressed to play the active track.
Although importing files in to a project is not yet a feature in Amadeus Pro it is Possible to Copy and paste audio from multiple files to create a multitrack project.
1: Press Command-O to open the file dialog. This is the standard dialog seen in most OS 10 applications and should be familiar to VoiceOver users.
2: when the desired folder is located select multiple files by doing the following. Interact with the file list by pressing VoiceOver-Shift-Down-Arrow. Move the VoiceOVer curser to the first file. Turn off curser tracking by pressing VoiceOVer-Shift-F3. The first file will now be selected. Move the voiceover curser to each desired file and when it's name is heard press command-spacebar to highlight the file. Do this until all files for the project are selected. To hear how many items are selected along with there file names press VoiceOVer keys-F6.
Note: the VoiceOVer keys MUST be held down during the file selection process.
ONce all files have been selected Press the enter key. Each file will open in a separate window within Amadeus Pro.
To paste the audio from a file in to Amadeus Pro ad a new track press VoiceOver-m to activate the Menu bar. Press the right arrow until the menu item "Sound" is spoken. Press the Down arrow until the menu item Ad mono track is heard. If a stereo track is needed that choice is below ad mono track.
Press enter on either ad mono or stereo track. This will ad a new track to the project. The menu will close and the new track will be added. Press Voiceover-m to activate the menu-bar. press the letter "W" and the word window will be spoken. This highlights the window menu. Press Down arrow until the first file that should be added to the project is heard. Press enter to open the window. Press Control-a to select all of the audio in the file. Press Command-` (Command-Axcent) to return to the project window and press Command-V to paste the audio in to the new track.
Use the VoiceOVer curser to find the scroll area located next to the tool bar and Interact with it by pressing VoiceOver-Shift-Dow-narrow. Once the track table is open Use VoiceOVer-Right-arrow to fine the edit area and give the new track a name. Do this for all files that are to be added to the project.
John W Hess
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