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

Part II: The SAOL Language

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 this short example or read the introductory tutorial presented in Part I of the book.

In Part II of the book, we focus on the SAOL language.

In the first chapter we describe the atomic units of SAOL expressions. We cover the lexical rules for numbers and names, and the declaration of signal variables and instr parameters. We describe the standard names and the global parameters.

In the second chapter we descibe SAOL arithmetic and logical expressions and the statements for assignment, conditionals, and looping.

In the third chapter we descibe the core opcodes for general-purpose computation, and introduce rate and width rules for core opcodes.

In the fourth chapter we introduce the SAOL wavetable type, that is specialized for holding sample data. We introduce the set of core opcodes that directly manipulate wavetables, as well as the set of wavetable generators for initializing wavetables.

In the fifth chapter we cover language features that relate to audio buses in SAOL. We describe the send, route, and sequence commands that create buses and effects instrs, and explain the rules of determining execution order of instr instances. We also describe the SAOL statements for writing to buses, and bus-specific standard names and global parameters.

Next:Part II/1: Numbers and Variables

Part II: Table of Contents

1. Numbers and Variables

2. Expressions and Statements

3. Simple Core Opcodes

4. Wavetables

5. Buses and Execution Order

Copyright 1999 John Lazzaro and John Wawrzynek.