From The MPEG-4 Structured Audio Book by John Lazzaro and John Wawrzynek.

Part V: Special Topics

Introduction

MPEG-4 Structured Audio (MP4-SA) is an ISO/IEC standard (edited by Eric Scheirer) that specifies sound not as audio data, but as a computer program that generates audio when run.

For an introduction to MP4-SA see the introductory tutorial presented in Part I of the book. For a complete description of the SAOL language, see Part II.

In Part V of the book, we show ways to solve common problems that arise when writing SAOL programs.

In the first chapter we show useful methods for debugging MP4-SA programs. We describe an sfront extension to SAOL for program debugging: a rate-sensitive version of the C printf statement.

In the second chapter we describe an advanced SAOL language feature, the template construct. Templates are a concise way to generate a family of instruments whose properties vary in a regular way.

In the third chapter we describe Slib, a SAOL library distributed with sfront that provides support utilities to simplify low-level SAOL programming.

In the fourth chapter we show how to write AudioUnit plug-ins in SAOL.

Next:Part V/1: SAOL Debugging

Part V: Table of Contents

1. Debugging SAOL Programs

2. Templates

3. The Slib Library

4. AudioUnit Plug-Ins

Copyright 1999 John Lazzaro and John Wawrzynek.