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

• Reported Errors.
• Program Crashes.
• Finding Runtime Errors.
• printf.
• I-rate Methods.
• K-rate Methods
• A-rate Methods

2. Templates

• A Simple Example
• Template Variables
• Preset Maplists

3. The Slib Library

• Trigonometric Opcodes.
• Numeric Constants.
• Symbolic Constants.
• The Scaled Smoothed MIDI Library.
• MIDI Constants.
• General MIDI Presets.

4. AudioUnit Plug-Ins

• AudioUnits Demystified.
• SAOL Plug-Ins.
• A Softsynth Example.
• An Effects Example.
• Debugging.