AUDEMO(1)

📦 version 1.9.5, in fedora 43, fedora 44

audemo 💖✨

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, because we're about to talk about audemo — the Network Audio System's record-and-play demo, and it is giving absolute main character energy. This is from the General Commands Manual section 1. no cap. 🎀

🌸 NAME 🌸

audemo — Network Audio System record and play demo 🎧

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

audemo [-audio servername] [-toolkitoption ...]  [directory]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

audemo hands you an X-based, window-oriented user interface to the Network Audio System service. it's basically the friend who does everything: it lets you play sound files that already exist, record brand new ones, and mess around with Network Audio System buckets. versatile queen. 👑

💅 AUDEMO AND THE ATHENA WIDGET SET 💅

audemo is built on the X Toolkit Intrinsics and the Athena Widget Set. if you wanna know more, go read the Athena Widget Set documentation. it's giving lore. 📚

🌈 SCREEN LAYOUT 🌈

when audemo first opens up, you get a single window, and that window is divided into several areas:

  • a collection of command buttons 🎛️
  • a left and right level meter 📊
  • a volume indicator and a control slider 🎚️
  • an information window 📄
  • an editable field holding the directory to search for sound files 🔍
  • an editable field holding a list of sound files to search for 📝
  • a window holding the list of sound files you can pick to play or load into buckets 🗂️

🎶 PLAYING A SOUND FILE 🎶

to play a sound file you gotta select it first from the list of files in the file window. you control which files show up in that window by editing the Directory and/or Template fields and then clicking the Rescan button. 🔄

to select a file: single-click on the filename. that highlights it and shows you info about the file in the information window. the info displayed includes:

  • Filename — the full pathname of the file. 📁
  • File Format — the file format of the audio file. 🎞️
  • Data Format — the encoding format of the audio data. 🔡
  • Tracks — the number of tracks of audio data. 🛤️
  • Frequency — the frequency at which the audio data was sampled. 📻
  • Duration — the duration of the audio data in seconds. ⏱️
  • Text — any text information stored in the file. 💬

once the file is selected, hit the Play command button and it starts playing. shortcut alert: double-click the file name and it selects and plays in one go. iconique. ✨

while a file is playing, the Play command button is highlighted. to stop it, click that highlighted Play button. to turn on the left and right level meters, click the Meter button before you start playing. to turn them off again, click the highlighted Meter button one more time. and to adjust volume, use the volume slider. 🎚️

🎙️ RECORDING TO A FILE 🎙️

audemo can record sound files in any supported file and data format. to record, first bring up the record window by clicking the Record command button. that window has the following fields and controls:

  • Filename — the name of the file you wanna create. unless you specify a path here, the file gets created in the current directory. 📁
  • File Format — a menu of file formats. 🎞️
  • Data Format — a menu of data formats. heads up: each file format does not necessarily support all of the data formats listed. 🙈
  • Max Duration — see RECORDING TO A BUCKET. ⏳
  • Read Only — see RECORDING TO A BUCKET. 🔒
  • Frequency — the sampling rate (in hertz) for the recording. higher sampling rates = better quality sound, but they eat up more disk and memory space. common sampling rates are 8000 (good for voice annotations), 11000, 22000, and 44000. 🔊
  • Mic(rophone) — this button tells the audio server whether you've got a microphone attached to the audio input jack. clicking it highlights it and makes the audio server boost the input gain to a level suitable for recording with a microphone. 🎤
  • Comment — text (like a description) you wanna put into the audio file. 💬
  • Gain — this slider adjusts the recording gain level. 🎚️
  • Record — this button starts or stops the recording. ⏺️
  • Monitor — this button enables or disables monitoring. 👂
  • New Bucket — see RECORDING TO A BUCKET. 🪣
  • Dismiss — this button stops recording and monitoring and closes the record window. ❌

once you've picked your filename, file and data formats, frequency, mic level, comment and gain, you're ready to record. to listen in on the audio that's about to be recorded, click the Monitor button — that sends all the audio coming in from the audio input jack straight to the speaker. 🎧

when you're ready, click Record. all the audio from the audio input jack now gets recorded into the file. recording continues until you click Record again or click Dismiss.

NOTE: audio data can accumulate very rapidly, especially at high sampling rates, resulting in large files. 💀

🪣 BUCKETS 🪣

the Network Audio System service gives you the ability to create server resident sound objects called buckets. audemo lets you create buckets, record into them, play from them, load them with data from a file, and dump their contents into a file. 📦

heads up bestie: buckets created by audemo are destroyed when audemo is terminated. 😭

these options show up when you bring up the buckets window by clicking the Buckets button in the main window. the buckets window is split into two areas:

  • a collection of command buttons 🎛️
  • a table of buckets currently accessible 🗃️

that table has these columns:

  • Description — the text description. 💬
  • Duration — the duration of the audio data in seconds. ⏱️
  • Tracks — the number of tracks of audio data. 🛤️
  • Frequency — the frequency at which the audio data was sampled. 📻
  • Format — a code letter indicating the encoding format of the audio data. you can display a key to the format code letters by clicking the Format Key button. 🔑
  • Access — a combination of code letters indicating the access mode of the bucket. you can display a key to the access code letters by clicking the Access Key button. 🔑

📥 CREATING A BUCKET FROM A FILE 📥

to create a bucket from an audio data file, select the filename from the list of files in the file window, then click the Load button in the buckets window. the first line of the buckets table should now hold the info about your brand-new bucket. ✨

▶️ PLAYING FROM A BUCKET ▶️

to play a bucket, select the one you want by clicking on its information in the buckets table. the entry you click should get highlighted. then click the Play button in the buckets window. 🎶

shortcut alert: double-click on the bucket information and it selects the bucket and starts playing from it. to stop, click the highlighted Play button in the buckets window. the level meters and volume level work exactly the same way as when you're playing from a file. 🎚️

⏺️ RECORDING TO A BUCKET ⏺️

to record into a new bucket, click the Record button in the buckets window. this brings up the record window — same one as for recording to files. 🪟

instead of specifying a filename, you fill in the Max Duration field with the maximum duration (in seconds) of data the bucket is supposed to hold. clicking the Read Only button stops other applications from writing into or destroying the bucket. 🔒 the frequency, mic level, format and comment work the same as when recording to files.

once all the fields are set the way you want, click the New Buckett button. that creates a new bucket according to the specs you gave. the first line of the buckets table should now contain the info about the newly created bucket. 🎉

to start recording into the bucket, select it by clicking on its information in the buckets table, then click the Record button in the record window. all the audio received from the audio input jack now gets recorded into the bucket. recording continues until you click Record again, click Dismiss, or the bucket is filled. the Gain slider and the Monitor button operate the same as when recording to a file. 🎚️👂

💾 SAVING A BUCKET TO A FILE 💾

to save a bucket to a file, first select the bucket by clicking on its information in the buckets table. then click the Save button in the buckets window. 💾

a dialog box pops up asking you for the name of the file to save the bucket data into, plus the file format. the data format used will be that of the bucket. heads up: each file format may only support selected data formats. if you don't give a path in the filename, the file gets created in the current directory. clicking Ok or pressing the RETURN key creates the file and writes the data from the bucket into it. ✨

🗑️ DELETING A BUCKET 🗑️

to delete a bucket, first select it by clicking on its information in the buckets table. then click the Delete button in the buckets window. if audemo has the appropriate access permissions for that bucket, the bucket gets deleted and its information gets removed from the bucket table. bye bestie 👋💀

🚪 EXITING AUDEMO 🚪

clicking the Quit button makes audemo exit — it stops any playing or recording operations and destroys any buckets that were created. clean exit, no loose ends. 🫶

🎛️ COMMAND LINE OPTIONS 🎛️

  • -audio servername — this option specifies the Network Audio System server that audemo should connect to. 🔌
  • directory — the directory name audemo will use to build the list of selectable file names. when directory isn't specified on the command line, the current working directory is used. 📂

🧪 EXAMPLES 🧪

in the following example, on a TCP/IP network, mcxterm is the name of the desktop machine running the audio server. the default port is 8000 and sound files live in ~/snd:

audemo -audio tcp/mcxterm:8000 ~/snd

in the following example, the shortened form of the audio server name is used, and sound files from the current working directory will be used:

audemo -audio mcxterm:0

🌱 ENVIRONMENT 🌱

on top of the standard toolkit environment variables, audemo uses these:

  • AUDIOSERVER — this variable specifies the default audio server to contact if -audio isn't specified on the command line. if this variable isn't set and -audio isn't specified on the command line, audemo will try to connect to the audio server running on the X Window System display. 🖥️🔊

💀 BUGS 💀

okay bestie, sit DOWN, because I need you to hear this with your whole chest:

Warning: audemo is the xterm of the Network Audio System. It was written to test features as the Network Audio System was being developed. It was also the author's first Xt program. Consequently, it's pretty ugly and should be completely re-written from scratch.

yeah. it's giving "science fair project that got out of hand." no cap. it's a feature-testing playground that accidentally became a whole app, it was literally the author's first ever Xt program, and the manpage itself is out here admitting it's pretty ugly and deserves a total glow-up from scratch. iconic honesty honestly 🫶 the devs said "this is a mess" and we respect the transparency fr fr 💅

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

go read these next, they're the supporting cast and they ate:

Copyright 1993, 1994 Network Computing Devices, Inc.

that's the whole thing. short, sweet, legally binding ✨

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Greg Renda, Network Computing Devices, Inc.

the man himself!! first Xt program and all 😭💜 we stan a pioneer

and that's the whole page bestie, you made it to the end, main character energy the entire way through 🎀 this lil artifact lives at version 1.9.5, filed under AUDEMO(1), and yeah it's old and it's ugly and it knows it, but it's ours and it plays sound files and that's what matters 🌸 slay, go make some noise 💖

📦 where this page comes from