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Vox Studio 3 User Guide

1. The system tab allows selection of the maximum number of undo levels available in Vox Studio the absolute maximum allowed is 8 This limit needs to be set very carefully because Vox Studio needs to keep a backup copy of altered sounds in order to undo the alterations If you work with very large recordings this can rapidly eat up hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes The temporary folder is where Vox Studio stores its intermediate work files This too can consume a lot of disk space if your sound files are large You should select a temporary folder located on the disk partition that has the largest amount of free disk space This may or may not be the disk where Windows itself keeps its temp folder 5 7 13 Defaults menu We very strongly suggest you browse through the various default options in the Tools Defaults menu and set the defaults to your liking before you start using Vox Studio Most of the support calls we receive are due to inappropriate settings in the Tools Defaults menu At the very least you should set the default working directories file formats and extensions used for multimedia and telephony files and you should also select sound card device drivers in the Tools Sound Devices menu or Vox Studio will not work satisfactorily Most default setting windows have both an OK and a Save as default button Pressing OK uses the selected default for this session of Vox Studio Pressing Save as default also store
2. if Cancel The default length of the individually produced DTMF tones and silences is programmable in the Tools Defaults DTMF menu Naturally as one would expect higher sample rates produce more accurate DTMF tones and these are detected more accurately Use the highest possible sample rate to generate DTMF tones Do not generate DTMF tones in files with sampling rates as low as 6 KHz they will usually not be accurate enough Do not forget to check the defaults settings for DTMF generation in the Tools Defaults DTMF menu In particular make sure you choose an output level that does not conflict with the regulatory requirements of your telephony provider Usually an output level of around 9dB will be adequate 5 7 2 Detect Vox Studio currently detects DTMF tones only Other telephony tones will be added in future versions Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 66 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Detect DTMF 5 7 2 1 Detect DTMF The DTMF tone detector scans your currently active file for DTMF tone pairs and shows if and which DTMF signals were detected in the file Vox Studio detects all 16 DTMF signals the detected digits include 1234567890 ABCD and DTMF tone detection File withD TMFtones way Found keys 12345678904BCD H Help Cancel It is very important to set the detection threshold at a realistic value using the Tools Defaults DTMF menu To give you some indication a must detect level of
3. 005 124 Entering the license ceeeeeeeeteeeeeees 18 EVEA ii ieee 124 Exit COMMANG v 20 rd 38 Expand Dialogic indexed file 61 Expand NMS indexed file 64 Fast recording of prompts oooocccccccccccccnnncs 11 Fast review of sound files 30 Fast visual recording of many prompts 43 File format conversion 52 File O MaS 103 File Me iia dais 32 Fl propertie Sinna taa 36 File slicer rie i a a ra 47 File Slicer defaults c c eeeceeeeeeeeeeeeees 89 Folder detalhs an a Resets 81 Format conversion 12 52 Format for script file o ooooooocooonnnnnnicnnn co 103 Formats from the multimedia world 113 Free downloaded version 123 EreqUent error iaa 119 Full Version ida rs 97 Functional demo version 123 Functionality oooocconncnnnnnonncncccnccccnonancnnnnn nn 10 General system requirements ooooccooncccnnnno 20 Generate DTMF tones n 66 Generating special telephony tones 65 Page 133 Glossary Of terms 128 GOTO Next Viewin s 42 Good quality recordingsS ooconnininnnncnnnn 115 Graphical display ooooooocccnnnnnnnnicccccccnnnnccannn 12 Group 2000 formats 108 Group and ungroup Dialogic defaults 90 Group and ungroup functionality 13 Group and ungroup NMS defaults 91 Group indexed Dialogic command 59 Group indexed NMS comma
4. Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 74 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Dragged files format File format Sound family Windows Wave bud Sound type Will be read from file Sampling frequency will be read from file y Non standard sample rate The functionality is similar to the standard method above except that you will have chosen all the files to play in an external program instead of in Vox Studio Ej 0 4 gt AN aa gt gt The Play List command is also available from the gt pause button on the toolbar at the bottom of the graph pane This same button can also be used as drop target for drag and drop playback 5 7 12 Options The Options command in the Tools menu customizes the way Vox Studio looks and acts Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 75 Customize Yox Studio Layout Colors Graph fonts Prompter font System m Main Windows MV Show sound filename IV Show sound format IV Show grid MV Show horizontal scale IV Show vertical scale Y Show position tool C Sample units The horizontal scale and cursor position will be shown in Time units Vox Studio 3 User Guide The vertical scale and cursor position will be shown in dB abv Percent peak peak p p The layout tab allows customization of what information is displayed in the main windows and how the graphs are labeled and shown The vertical scale setti
5. The Monitor Sound Input command can also be activated by clicking on player button EH under the graph pane 5 7 4 Play Selection This command is only enabled if you have indeed selected part or the entire active signal in the graph window When activated this command plays the selected portion of the signal Ej lt 4 gt 00 mu D gt gt This command is also available from the gt play button on the toolbar at the bottom of the graph pane if a selection is active that selection will play if no selection exists the whole file will play when pressing the play button Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 70 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 7 5 Play Window This command is only enabled if you have already zoomed in on part or the entire active signal in the graph window When activated this command plays the visible portion of the signal Ej lt q gt 00 mu po This command is also available from the gt play button on the toolbar at the bottom of the graph pane if a zoom is active that button will play the visible window if no selection exists otherwise the selection will play when pressing the play button 5 7 6 Play All CAMINDOWS Desktop TEST WAY 0 000 2 000 4 000 6 000 6 000 10 000 12 000 16 bits linear Wave Mono 22050 Hz 326200 samples 14 Sec 794 coa nm X This command plays the whole active file During play a moving cursor shows progress through the file This comma
6. Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 23 Vox Studio 3 User Guide you work on sound files and you are not alone in your office a set of headphones might actually be a practical requirement 4 3 9 Speaker We mean the human speaker here not the loudspeaker Recording studios call them voice talents This is probably the most impalpable parameter of all but it is also one with a huge influence on the ultimate result Experience shows that just as there are radio voices there is something like a telephony voice Some people have the ability to make themselves more clearly understood over one medium than over the other A good radio voice doesn t necessarily make a good telephony voice and vice versa Most telephony cards work at 6 KHz or 8 KHz sample rates This means that the highest voice frequency component these cards can actually play back to the phone line never exceeds 3 or 4 KHz Worse the telephone system itself limits the bandwidth to 3 4 KHz It is therefore usually better not to select a voice talent with a lot of high frequency content a lot of what they pronounce would get lost in the process anyway This is detrimental to intelligibility 4 3 10 Studio The main characteristics to look for are e Absolute silence e Room geometry You may have to experiment to find a suitable location Try to find a reasonably soundproof area in your office so that outside noises and PC hum is eliminated entirely or at least drastica
7. ooooonncnninnnnnnnnnnnn 80 OVEIVIOW iia 7 Panning in a graph 32 Paste sound in a file cceeeeeeeeeeeeeeteees 39 Pause playback zmeri aaa ira 72 Philips Voicemanager formats 00 111 Philosophy behind Vox Studio 8 PhoneBlaster formats ccccceeceeeees 111 Play a List of Files defaults 82 Play a long list of files cceeeeeeeeeteeteees 73 Play everything except selection 71 Play the current screen selection 70 Play the current screen window 71 Play the whole file 71 Playback functionality ooooooocconnccnnnnnnnnnncccnnco 12 Playback sound device ccccccccccnccnnnnnnnnnnos 94 Player buttons 100 Previous VIOW occccccccnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnninnnoninnnos 42 Print and return registration info 19 Print license informati0N cccccccnnnnnnnnnnnns 98 Problem solving ooocoocccnnncccccccnnncccanancnnnnnos 122 Program Setup errar ds 17 Prompter command cccononccnncccacnccnnnccnnnnna nano 43 Prompter defaults ooooonccninnccnccccnnnnccnanccccnnos 87 Prompter Options oooooccccnnicocccccnnnccnanaccnnnnnos 44 Prompters MeNU ccccccccccnnnnnnccnccnnnnninnnnnnnnnnos 42 Proof of registration oooonnonicinnnccnnnnnninnncancnnos 98 Properties of sound file oococcmm 36 Quality issues related to conversion 118 Quality o
8. and of file leading and trailing silences silent padding before and after the tone sequence For DTMF detection the minimum tone amplitude setting defines the threshold level above which DTMF tone pairs are considered to be valid DTMF digits You can also set the maximum difference in amplitude twist level between the high frequency tone and the low frequency tone for DTMF signals to be considered as valid Finally you can set the minimum duration for a DTMF signal to be detected as valid and the maximum allowable gap loss of signal in such a DTMF signal If there is a gap in the tone below this value then only one tone is seen If the gap is above this value then two DTMF tones are seen It is important to set all these values at realistic levels or DTMF detection will be totally meaningless Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 93 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 7 14 Sound Devices Record Playback Device SB Live Wave In 1040 y m Capabilities Hz 8bits 16bits Hz Sbits 16bits Hz Sbits 16 bits 6000 No No 11025 Yes Yes 32000 Yes Yes 6053 No No 16000 Yes Yes 34600 No No 7200 No No 22050 Yes Yes 44100 Yes Yes 8000 Yes Yes 24000 Yes Yes 48000 Yes Yes 8117 No No 31200 No No 64000 No No This command allows selection of one sound input device and one sound output device from the sound devices currently installed under Windows It is possible to have several sound ca
9. e Some sound cards give better results less noise with microphones when the microphone is connected to the line input rather than the microphone input Strange but true It is worth the Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 114 Vox Studio 3 User Guide experiment Make sure that your sound card records and plays back at the precise sampling rate you ask it to We have encountered a sound card that was 9 off its 6 000 Hz sampling rate in other words it was unusable Some manufacturers cut corners and use simplified clocks As a result the sample rate is sometimes not very accurate outside of the traditional 11 22 and 44 KHz ranges This is not audible if you record and play on the same card This becomes very audible if you export the resulting sound file to another system This is catastrophic if your files contain calibrated frequencies like the DTMF tones As a test record any input at 8 KHz for exactly one minute use a stopwatch then look at the recorded signal in Vox Studio The bottom part of the window should indicate exactly 480 000 samples in the file e Buy the best sound card you can afford A few hours of messing around because of a poor card will cost you more than the difference for a decent sound card There are lots of very good cards at very affordable prices It would be nice to be able to test it on Vox Studio and return it if it is not good enough for your telephony needs e If you are using a cheap sound card an
10. ocooocconnccnnnncccononaonccnnonnnann nono nnncnnnncnnnnnnnn cnc 113 6 2 24 Windows wav TOMAS ia 113 7 Tipsrand il CChniQues lt cs wivawessiis A nies aden aes Maesteg eee 114 Ax Sound card Quality 2 155 seekers Manin a A eee ede 114 7 2 Mixer editor and volume applets c ccceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeccaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesaeeeeeees 115 da Glean recordings tO Start sissies wtattes ieee dicen etna Soi asda eee 115 4 Conversion and quality s nctc sata a eL a a a ate 118 7 5 Sampling frequencies of Old Cards oooooccccnnnccnnnccicnnnncncnnccnnnnano nono nn cnnnn cnn nnnnn nn nn ran nnnnrnnnn nn 119 7 6 MyTiles do nOt SOUNd nohtne aa aa a a aa aaa 119 Lada SAMpPleMleS nc IS A 120 8 SUPport SOCUOM A A e a ia 121 8 Registration aussie Re eee ee 121 8 2 SUPPOR nei a itn heen ea iad lien a ie ened Se 122 8 3 Euinctional d Mos cch iwi ai ee eee 123 8 4 OPONE 123 8 5 End User License Agreement ooccccnnnnnnnnnccccccnnnncnnnnncnnnnnnnnnnnnn nn cnn cnn nn nrnnn cnn cnn rra rr 124 8 6 1 Third party trademarks AAA 127 9 Glossary staan Sei een Be eee a ena aes 128 Didi MOSS 2 ten nuestra nana A eA 128 102 ING OX ventana ah a wen a ee Sa 133 Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 4 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 1 Contents This Vox Studio user guide comprises the following chapters Introduction to Vox Studio 3 explains what Vox Studio is Functionality details the available featu
11. 24dB and a may not detect anymore level of 32 dB are realistic values in telephony Typically one is not allowed to place DTMF tones with very high amplitudes on a telephone line above 9 dB for instance so it is useles to try and detect DTMF tones above that value or below the minimum threshold value More productivity features based on this DTMF detection capability will be added in future versions of Vox Studio 5 7 3 Monitor Sound Input The recording level input monitor is useful during the early stages of the setup and tuning of your recording installation There are three views the waveform display the VU meter and a spectral display of the input signal What you see is not what you have recorded but rather the direct signal input of your sound card The Waveform view shows a linear representation of the input signal and looks like this Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 67 Page 68 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Recording level 100 Fi 50 2 O 2 50 fi 100 r Show l dB scale C Wave dB The VU meter looks like the one used on professional tape recorders It will allow you to calibrate the recording sensitivity of your multimedia sound card While speaking normally into your microphone tune the sensitivity with the volume adjustment utility provided by your card manufacturer Make sure the visual indication goes only occasionally into the red area risk of s
12. DA VEN MEN eaaa A NN 40 O A RIE 40 HA2 FZO TIT 41 DAL ZOOM Distant aaa a 41 RA 41 a 41 DAG Scroll Leticia a a a capeeuneeandhacacaedbuwsed et ianavecdenencc 42 A tisha coed ened pel a aaa aa aa raa aaa yeh luehduottveas Latent aaaea 42 pAg PREVIOUS VICW rererua e Aa EE EENE EE 42 BAO NEL VIEN eet A TA 42 A PrOmpters MenUici tt ie cesed eet eetaaatdioee te Die supeuvpedvondaandioael tulad EE EESTE ETET 42 A tet escehpeteancteteaervbeaetetutl E OEE EAEE EE EEA E EO EEE 43 Di PROMPLCMOPLIONMS ce ee eo EON 44 E O re E oe ee en at eee ee eee ee era 45 5 5 4 Tape Loader Options ccccccccccceceeeeeececeeeeeeeecceeaaaaeeeeeeecteeeaaaeeeetteeceaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeenaeees 46 55 52 A E E S ETI AE ITA OI AES AO A 47 A AA A A 48 DD E EE ACUVe A A cl A O AO A EA T 48 A CONVEN A O 52 O 55 5 6 4 Group to Dialogic indexed fil8 oonooooccnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnacicnnnnnnnncarconrnnccnnnn cn nana cnn rra 59 5 6 5 Ungroup from Dialogic indexed file oooonniinnninicicnnnncccocccnnncccncconnncnrnn cnn nn naar rn cnn 61 5 6 6 Group to NMS indexed file oonooonnnnnninnnnnnnnnncccinncnonnnccnnnrrnnccnnn cnn nan ncnnnn cra n cra naar 62 5 6 7 Ungroup from NMS indexed file oooonnccnnnninnnncccnnnnnccocccccnnnonnnconanncr arc ncrnnnnnnnnrnnn 64 57 TOS MENO A A A A AAA A 65 5 7 1 Generale O NN 65 A ON 66 5 7 3 Monitor Sound Input iou aa 67 5724 Play Selec cc cds 70 DD Play WINGOW cc 71 Dor Play Al aa 71 D
13. Use a text editor to generate or edit script files Programs that come with Windows like Notepad and WordPad save as text can produce prompt script files There should be no additional blank lines CR LF pairs other than what is shown below Here is the layout for a NMS script file Begin Script CR LF pair CR LF pair Filename for prompt 1 no extension here CR LF pair Prompt index for prompt 1 CR LF pair Text of prompt 1 on as many lines as needed CR LF pair CR LF pair Filename for prompt 2 no extension here CR LF pair Prompt index for prompt 2 CR LF pair Text of prompt 2 on as many lines as needed CR LF pair CR LF pair and so on Filename for prompt n CR LF pair Prompt index for prompt n CR LF pair Text of prompt n on as many lines as needed CR LF pair CR LF pair End Script CR LF pair 6 2 Sound File Formats Essentially Vox Studio knows two generic groups of sound file formats the multimedia formats usually known as wav files and the telephony formats often known as vox files but it can be anything you want Script file format Bicom format Centigram formats Dialogic formats Elan Informatique format Group 2000 formats IBM Directalk format InterVoice formats Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 104 Vox Studio 3 User Guide ITU CCITT formats Microlog Intela formats Natural Microsystems NMS formats NewVoice formats Next and Sun formats Nortel
14. Vox Studio 3 User Guide The Undo command can also be activated by clicking on t in the toolbar section You can also use the Ctrl Z keyboard shortcut to undo 5 3 2 Cut This command cuts removes a selected segment of sound from the active window This only works if a segment of sound has been selected The cut segment will be placed on the program s clipboard so that it can be pasted elsewhere in the same or in another sound file The Cut command can also be activated by clicking on X in the toolbar section You can also use the Ctrl X keyboard shortcut to cut 5 3 3 Copy This command copies but does not remove a selected segment of sound from the active window This only works if a segment of sound has been selected The copied segment will be placed on the program s clipboard so that it can be pasted elsewhere in the same or in another sound file The Copy command can also be activated by clicking on in the toolbar section You can also use the Ctrl C keyboard shortcut to copy 5 3 4 Paste This command pastes a segment of sound from the program s clipboard into the active file at the current cursor position or into the current selection The selected section will be replaced by the pasted data If no cursor position or selection exists the segment of sound will be pasted at the end of the active file The segment of sound remains on the program s clipboard and can be pasted at other places until it is replaced by anoth
15. When recording prompts will be sliced by ee Tape loader Hitting the spacebar Esc or Stop ends recording Start ting at 015 Detecting a silence longer than 2 000 sec PORES and a silence longer than 10 000 sec Countin Decimal will end recording Hexadecimal 4 00 ZRMS Sound levels below 27 968 dB will be regarded HER Save as default as silence 27 96 dB OK Cancel This command allows you to select all the default operating parameters of the tape loader These settings can be changed from the tape loader itself with the Parameters button Select how the filenames for the recorded messages will be created You can select a script file in which case the filenames will be taken from the script file itself Caution If you don t enter a save prompt files to folder in the tape loader defaults then the complete path without extension though it is always wav has to be entered in the script file itself If a save prompt files to folder is entered in the tape loader defaults only a filename without any extension should be entered in the script file Instead of using a script file you can also have Vox Studio generate filenames automatically These will consist of a fixed alphabetic radix and a variable incrementing numerical suffix The numeric part can be decimal or hexadecimal For example if the starting radix is ivr and the trailing number is 1087 then f
16. can be decimal or hexadecimal For example if the starting radix is FileToCut and the trailing number is 0050 then filenames from FileToCut0050 wav to FileToCut9999 wav can be generated You can also define the default number of seconds of silence Vox Studio uses to separate the prompts concatenated within the large wav file It would be a good idea to have 3 to 5 seconds of silence as a prompt delimiter in your large concatenated wav recordings You can also define what Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 89 Vox Studio 3 User Guide length of silence represents the end of all tape recordings This should be much longer than the longest separating silence on the tape The threshold for silence detection can be set in or in decibels Finally select the disk folder where the new files will be stored The file format for the new files will be the same as the file format of the input file 5 7 13 10 Group and Ungroup Dialogic defaults Group Ungroup Dialogic indexed defaults Indexed file Prompt fles Scriptfie Location Indexed file folder C VYoxtudio VOXFILES Indexed filename extension vap Indexed file format Sound type ADPCM E Sampling frequency 8000 b When grouping reserve header space for maximum 100 prompts Help Save as defaults Cancel Select the default directory where the indexed files typically reside Define the default extension to
17. file this is an easy way of cutting it all into separate prompts 3 5 Playback functionality Any file loaded in Vox Studio can be played using the Play Pause Fast Forward Fast Reverse and Stop buttons conveniently located in a toolbar at the bottom of Vox Studio s main window The fast Forward and Reverse buttons don t just move your position in the sound file they actually play the file at high speed in forward and reverse mode This may sound strange but is actually very useful if you have a transcription job to do There is also a Play List command which allows simple playback of a whole list of files These files can be wav files or telephony files ADPCM A law mu law you name it Drag and drop playback capability is provided as well Multiple files can be dragged from an external program and dropped onto Vox Studio to start the Play List command 3 6 Waveform display functionality Vox Studio displays the waveform of each loaded sound file in a separate graphical window The waveform display is essential when you need to manually intervene and do some cutting and pasting in sound files The waveform display also gives valuable feedback on problem situations like files that were recorded at too high or too low amplitude Noisy background sounds are also clearly visible Naturally the graphical display allows zooming and scrolling Two generic display modes are available you can look at the linear waveform amplitude or you c
18. version that enables you to test the features and the performance of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT before registering it Both a License ID and a License Key are provided with the SOFTWARE PRODUCT license The License ID is equivalent to a unique identifying serial number The License Key is equivalent to an unlocking key or secret code unlocking that particular serial number to function in full non demo mode You must use the unregistered demo version before registering the SOFTWARE PRODUCT with a License ID and Key for full licensed use If you are not satisfied with the functionality or performance of the unregistered demo version do not access the License Key and do not register unlock or otherwise use the licensed version of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT You may however return the SOFTWARE PRODUCT to your place of purchase for a full refund if and only if you return the unopened License Key together with the SOFTWARE PRODUCT and if you have never obtained a License Key for the SOFTWARE PRODUCT from Xentec or anyone else in any form or on any medium Once you have received or accessed any SOFTWARE PRODUCT License Key by any means the SOFTWARE PRODUCT cannot be returned If you resell the SOFTWARE PRODUCT you must also provide the License ID and License Key with it and you must destroy any copies of the License Key in your possession You may never disclose the License Key and you are legally responsible for the correct use of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT according
19. 13 Intelligibility enhancement functionality ooooocccnnnncnininicccccccnnananannn cnn cnn cnn conan rn cnn rn 15 3 14 Filtering TUNctiONaliY escitas santnnts llei sone od Aa aaee Aat 15 3 15 DTMF generation functionality coocccninnnnncccnnnnccnnonnccnnnncnncnnnnnnnnnncnnnnnnnnnnnno aaa aanas 15 3 16 DITMF detection functionality cesta aaa aaa aara st pisbea 16 3 175 DIMF filtering functonality si cctcictheheosteceaene ar eeeueotdanccngeeetus bale aa e a aaa eba bubrah at 16 4 Installation A ed EO AAEN 17 Ao PLOMO SU E E tea 17 4 1 1 Install the prograM ooconnnnnnnnnnnncccnnnccnnnnnccnnnnnnnnnn anar n nro cnn nn crac nn nnnnnn nn 17 4 1 2 Create working folders ooonooccconnccnnnncicnnocononccononanann ccoo nncnnnn cnn nan nr nn nn cnn rn r rn cnn nn rra 18 4 1 3 Set program defaultS ooooooocnnnnncnnnnnninnnnoccnnnconnnnnonnnonnncnnnnconnnnn cnn nn nr nana n rro nn nn cnn nn rca nnnnnrnn 18 4 1 4 Entering your license information oooocccnnnnnnnccinnnccocnccnonananrnncnnncnnnnnnnn nan nn nc nrnn nan rnnnnnnno 18 4 1 5 Print and return registration info oonnonnccnnnnininicinnncocccnnnnnnnnarn cnn nnccnnnnnn naar rn n nr rana 19 A 5 KEO LC a a AOA sae oees oa stee coe O E saeeniesemudvastuautcnettyaeee terest es 20 4 3 System Requirements cccccecccceceeeeeeeecneeee eee eeeeeeteecaaaaeeeeeeeeceaaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesaaaeeeeeesenaaaes 20 E A sce uate aupeteaneceeatnaetenchaacsu E O E O 21 4 3 2 O EE glo
20. 2001 Page 106 Vox Studio 3 User Guide and the previous value The compression ratio obtained is relatively modest 12 bits resolution data samples are encoded as 4 bit differentials ADPCM coding introduces signal errors and the sound quality is slightly affected but it remains sufficient for many telephony applications Naturally 8 KHz ADPCM sounds MUCH better than 6 KHz ADPCM Traditionally 6 KHz ADPCM is also called 24 KBps 6KHz x 4 bits and 8 KHz ADPCM is called 32 KBps 8KHz x 4 bits This is a very confusing way of defining the sound coding algorithm used as for instance some other ADPCM algorithms produce 24 KBps which is in fact 3 bit data sampled at 8 KHz Not many people know that some cards use 6 0 and 8 0 KHz sampling rates and other very old cards use 6 053 and 8 117 KHz rates Beware when playing back files from one card type onto another If the files contain voice samples the chances are nobody will ever notice the slight difference in pitch However if the files contain frequency sensitive material say DTMF data streams then the 1 5 difference may in fact cause very severe problems Vox Studio has the capability to convert to and from indexed ADPCM files vap files as well These are files that contain more than one voice message per physical file with a header at the beginning of the file that contains pointers to the start of each separate voice message This technique was introduced mainly to circumvent t
21. 2001 Page 22 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Tools Options System and press Use Windows temporary folder 4 3 6 Sound card You need a multimedia compliant sound card if you want to use Vox Studio to record or play back No sound card is needed at all if Vox Studio is used to perform format or coding conversions or filtering only A sound card is not a must for playing back files if you have another setup outside of Vox Studio to play files over your voice processing telephony card for instance You may not be able to play back wav files that way unless your telephony card driver allows it and the quality may be no better than telephony quality Vox Studio drives multimedia compliant sound cards but not telephony voice cards You should select a sound card that can do 16 bit recordings and can handle sample frequencies of 44 KHz or more down to 6 KHz and do it well Your sound card should also be able to record or playback mono signals at all the sampling frequencies of interest to you Most cards perform fine at the standard 11 KHz 22 KHz and 44 KHz sampling frequencies However where you can often really see a big difference is how they perform at nonstandard frequencies like 6 KHz and 8 KHz or 48KHz and 64KHz Select a sound card that is immune to the PC s power supply electrical noise By all means select a card that comes from a reputable vendor that supplies quality drivers and driver upgrades a Windows sound mixer level adjuster
22. ES S1 1 A stun eteeesan E TE E ets 21 33 MEMON a a ahead dad eae 22 AA Disp ic A 22 4 3 D _ DISK SPC ismael 22 4 39 07 Sound Caio 23 A UMICTOPNONO mean 23 43 8 Headphones an 23 O A A 24 4 3 10 SUIS 2 a er rere retrrreeirere reer eeceer rere eee reece 24 5 Menus Commands and ButtOns cccccccceccccceeeceececeueeceeceeeeeeceuseeeaueeeeeeeeaeeceesaeseeeeeeeeeeaaes 25 Bul Wer lntefades nnna a soba AA tec encase vantia Eaa 25 5 1 1 Main WINdOW usada ea 25 5 1 2 Minimizing Maximizing ClOSING ooooocccnnnninnninnnnncooccnconnnnnanan cnn cnn cnn cnn naar rr r rana 28 5 13 Drag and drop load voii a A vie ie ees 29 571 4 Drag MA drop play vw AAA AA 30 5 1 5 Selecting a sound SOM ooccccnnnncccccncncccnnncnnnannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn nn nn narran naar cnc cnn nn rana rr narran 30 5 16 ZOOMING IN and Utd ea 31 5 1 7 Scrolling a zoomed Qaph cooccccnnncnococoncccnnnncnnnnnncnnnncnnnnnnn ocn nn nnnnnn anna nnnncn nn n cr nnnnnnn nn nnnnnrs 32 5 2 File M NUi tacts pean iin a ee ee 32 5 2 1 NOW vies aint at anitieeliiannin tn A a ee 33 5 2 2 V OPEN A Satine av ee ne an i a ee es 33 A O nian wae ea ae i AA 35 5 2 4 A A san ona etn a e a a e i a N 35 Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 2 Vox Studio 3 User Guide o 35 GAG NT 35 A NT 36 52 8 POPE niin ni aA CE Ea diene 36 52 9 O oe 38 5 3 A 38 5 3 1 O Onin 38 A E a E nnn aaa 39 5 33 COPY A a divans Sienna 39 A RO 39 5a aaa ANA 39 530 r O 40
23. Indexed commands Therefore a recording sequence made with the Vox Studio prompter and translated into the final target format can immediately be used to generate one large indexed file containing all the recorded prompts You can change the default display font for the Prompter by setting it in the Tools Options Prompter font dialog box The Prompter command can also be activated by clicking on in the toolbar section Prompter options 5 5 2 Prompter options This is the dialog box where you define which type of wav file the prompter will produce You can choose between 8 and 16 bit files and sample rates from 6 to 48 KHz If you don t know where to start select 16 bit files at 22 KHz and go from there Browsing buttons allow you to select the script file that will be used for the next prompter session as well as the target directory where the recorded prompts will be saved If you don t enter a save to path in the prompter defaults then the complete path with file name without extension though it is always wav has to be entered in the script file itself If a save to directory is entered in the prompter defaults only a file name without extension should be entered in the script file Prompter options m Prompt format Sound family W indows wave Sound type 16 bits linear Sampling frequency 44100 Hz E Ion standard sample rater m Prompt files Save prompt files to Browse
24. Malicia 112 Screen resol citadas 22 SCript file Tor Maturana at 103 SENA idad 41 Serot iii 42 ms 1e1 6 Life La eemereer epee ene Doerr er crerer aaa 42 Scrolling in a graph 32 Search in the Help file 97 Select the whole sound file 40 Selecting a segment of SouNd 000 30 Set defaults cceeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeees 18 Silence adjustment functionality 14 Silence while recording 24 Slicing a wav file in chunks n 47 Slicing an existing wav file eee 11 Solving problemS oooococccccnnncoconnccancccnnnannnnnoos 98 Sound card quality ooociccicinnnndinnnnnconccccnnnnos 114 Sound card requireMent ccccceeeeeeees 23 Sound card Selection ecceeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 94 Sound file formats cccceeeeeeeeeereeeee 104 Sound input device eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 23 Sound is not as expected 119 Sound level adjustment ceeeeees 115 Sound level normalization cccceeees 14 Sound Mappe cora 94 SoundDesigner ll format cceeeeees 112 Speaker requireMent cccccceeeeeeeeeeeeeees 24 Stop playbaCK iranan E N 72 Studio requirements 24 Studio sample filOS ooooococcnonnnonnnnnannccccnnnno 120 Summary of menu commands 0 25 Sun and Next formats cccceeeeeeeeeees 110 SUPPO a a da 98 122 Support section aosa oN 121 Table Of CONTENTS secan 5 Talk Off reductiON
25. Studio window The menu bar is located at the top of the screen underneath the program s title bar It has the menu commands File Edit View and so on You can activate the menu commands by clicking on any of the menu items This will then open a list of actions from which you can select the one you want to perform The menu bar simply looks like this File Edit View Prompters Convert Tools Window Help Under the menu bar you will find toolbars that have one click buttons for most of the important commands but not for all of them The toolbars look like this aa Ia EIA Oe AWA SS Ba x e2 e s In the beginning while you are still learning Vox Studio you can rest your mouse cursor over the toolbar buttons for about half a second and a yellow ScreenTip will appear to explain what the button does Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 26 Vox Studio 3 User Guide The graph pane on the right under the toolbars is where the currently loaded files are shown as waveforms each in its own graphical window The files can be edited in the graphical windows you can select copy cut delete and insert sound chunks Each of the graphical windows has a status bar at the bottom that shows detailed information on the file s type encoding sampling rate number of samples and length in seconds You can change the default display font for the horizontal and vertical scales by setting it in the Tools Options Graph fonts dial
26. Telephony format files often lack a header luckily there are a few exceptions and the program user is the only one able to provide the information that Vox Studio needs to read the file data correctly It is of course crucial to give Vox Studio the right file information If you do not Vox Studio will still read Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 34 Vox Studio 3 User Guide the file but what you will hear or see will be junk Typically if you hear screeching noise instead of normal sounds then you have probably selected the wrong coding algorithm ADPCM instead of A law for example If your file plays too fast or too slow then you have given the wrong sample rate to Vox Studio The Open command can also be activated by clicking on gt in the toolbar section 5 2 3 Close This command closes the active window If the sound file in the window has been modified since it was last saved you will be prompted to save the file to disk The Close command can also be activated by clicking on a in the toolbar section 5 2 4 Close All This command closes all the loaded files If the sound file in any window has been modified since it was last saved you will be prompted to save that file to disk The Close All command can also be activated by clicking on D in the toolbar section 5 2 5 Save This saves the file in the active window to its original location on disk The file is saved under its original name and in its original
27. The icons from left to right and top to bottom represent the following commands File Exit H File New File Open L gt File Close File Close All Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 99 Vox Studio 3 User Guide q File Save File Save All File Properties ES View Scroll Left E View Scroll View Scroll Right View Zoom In View Zoom All View Zoom Out View Previous View View Next View Edit Undo Edit Cut X Edit Copy Edit Paste Gs Edit Delete XK Convert Transform Active 2 mh Convert Convert Active Convert Batch Convert Prompters Prompter Prompters Tape Loader s Prompters File Slicer 5 10 2 Player Recorder Buttons The Player Recorder buttons are located at the bottom of the graph pane and look like this Ej lt 4 gt AN mu D gt gt The buttons from left to right represent the following commands Monitor Sound Input EH Record Fast Rewind Play gt T All or Play Window or Play Selection Pause y Stop La Fast Forward Copyright O Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 100 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Play a List of Files pe This is also the drag and drop play target drop sound files on this button and they will play in Vox Studio 5 10 3 Right click contextual menu When you right click with the mouse on a graph window the following context sensitive menu opens Window Horizontal Scale f v Show Scale Vertical Scale g
28. Vox Studio program itself during conversion Rather than stop a batch command because an error occurred somewhere Vox studio writes an error notice in this log file and continues to convert from there on Always check the log file after a batch conversion e Trim leaders and trailers sets the defaults for trimming leading and trailing blanks Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 85 Vox Studio 3 User Guide The dialog box allows you to select the threshold level Vox Studio uses to detect the difference between silence and non silence The threshold level can be set either as a percentage of the maximum on screen amplitude or as a threshold value in dB dBm or dBV Don t set the threshold lower than your background noise level or nothing will work The default silence duration itself is also defined here A reasonable typical value would be 300 milliseconds Normalize sound volume sets the default maximum sound energy for normalization The selection can be done in of the maximum on screen amplitude in dB or in dBm dBV Vox Studio does not measure peak AMPLITUDE it measures peak ENERGY over a duration of several milliseconds about the duration of a spoken syllable Usually a choice of about 65 of maximum energy will be fine Remember that you can also enter values in decibels and that Vox Studio s dBV or dBm display capability can be calibrated If center around zero is selected here then centering will be activated by de
29. a pure text file All lines are terminated with the Enter key Carriage Return Line Feed pair The file begins with Begin Script and ends with End Script The filenames have NO extension The extension is wav by default for the Prompter and Tape Loader The annotation line is a short one line description or title for each file The text for the prompts uses as many lines as necessary and is followed by an additional empty line a lone CR LF pair This text appears in the main window when you are using the Prompter If annotations are not required by your system these may be replaced by an empty line a lone Enter or CR LF pair but they cannot be removed The same is true for prompt text lines if you do not use the prompt text when using the Tape Loader for instance or when grouping files you may replace it by an empty line if you prefer You do not have to replace unused lines by blanks If you leave them in the same script file will be usable for the Prompter the Tape Loader the File Slicer and the Group operation Use a text editor to generate or edit script files Programs that come with Windows like Notepad and WordPad save as text can produce prompt script files There should be no additional blank lines CR LF pairs to those shown below Here is the layout for a Dialogic script file Begin Script CR LF pair CR LF pair Filename for prompt 1 no extension here CR LF pair Short annotation or title for prompt 1 CR L
30. code for ts Country Belgium Phone 32 2 757 0666 Fax 322757 0777 To register fill in the License ID and associated License Key below Registered copies of Yox Studio are linked to a License ID which identifies you uniquely Every License ID is tracked You are therefore responsible for ensuring correct usage of this program according to the terms of the license agreement Licenses and Keys cannot be returned and you remain responsible for their correct usage In case of doubt click lt Cancel gt now License ID JOHNDOE654321 License Key Fess Unregister Cancel Registered users have purchased a license for Vox Studio and have received a unique license ID and license key The license ID and key are confidential and personal Users should always test the free demo version before purchasing a full license Once purchased a software license is nonreturnable Do not lose your licensing information it will not be replaced Do not show your license information to anyone it is personal Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 121 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Your license ID is required for every technical support or upgrade request Vox Studio requires user information to be entered before you use the program This is required once only and may have been done for you by your distributor Only one installed version and one nonutilized and noninstalled backup copy per paid Vox Studio license is allowed to exist at any ti
31. defaults Prompter defaults C VYoxtudio Here you define the default sample rate to be used for the Prompter recording sessions You can also define the directory where the recorded files will be saved by default during a Prompter session If you don t enter a save to path in the prompter defaults then the complete path with filename without extension though it is always wav has to be entered in the script file itself If a save to directory is entered in the prompter defaults only a filename without extension must be entered in the script file You can select the filename and location of the default script file used for Prompter sessions All these default options can be changed while in the Prompter itself but having these set correctly here will facilitate your work Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 87 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 7 13 8 Tape Loader defaults Tape loader defaults m Prompt format Prompt filenames at al did C Read filenames from a script file Sound type 16 bits linear Script file Sampling frequency Script file folder Browse 44100 Hz y C Windows Desktop i Gh standard Sample rater Prompter script file extension txt Prompt folder Save prompt files to jc WoxtudioWoxfiles Generate filenames from a template Filenames will start with an alphabetic radix and r Prompt slicing end with a trailing counter
32. linear Number of channels Sampling frequency 1 Mono 22050 Hz Number of samples Lenath 120320 5 Sec 457 The information provided is File name Sound Family Sound Type Number of sound channels Sound sampling frequency sample rate Total number of sound samples Total sound length in seconds The properties window is slightly different for indexed files For instance if the current indexed file format allows text comments within the indexed file then the comment for the currently selected prompt will also be shown in the properties window It may look like this Prompt information File name Prompt text Prompts vap This is the end of transaction message Family Indexed Dialogic Type ADPCM Number of prompts Prompt number 8 7 Number of channels Sampling frequency 1 Mono 8000 Hz Number of samples Lenath 17182 2 Sec 148 Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 37 Vox Studio 3 User Guide The Properties command can also be activated by clicking on in the toolbar section 5 2 9 Exit This command terminates Vox Studio and exits to Windows If files need to be saved you will be prompted to do so You can terminate the program using these 6 normal methods You can use the menu command File Exit You can click the green exit button on the toolbar You can click the X button in the top right corner of Vox Studi
33. linear PCM A law Mu law Dialogic ADPCM OKI ADPCM The industry standard format for multimedia sound files is the wav PCM format These files are usually but not necessarily recorded at 11 025 KHz 22 05 KHz 44 1 KHz or 48 KHz sampling rates with a resolution of either 8 or 16 bits In addition to 11 22 44 and 48 KHz files Vox Studio can also record and play back wav files at 6 0 6 053 7 2 8 0 8 117 16 24 32 and 64 KHz These are the sampling frequencies used by most industry standard telephony voice cards A nice characteristic of wav files is that they have a header that contains useful information such as resolution in bits and sampling rate in Hz Therefore when Vox Studio reads wav files it is unnecessary to tell it what the file type is Vox Studio gets that information from the wav files themselves this is not so with telephony type files which usually contain raw data only Vox Studio can also write the very old wav file format used by some obsolete wav utilities There is an option in the output file format section of the Defaults menu that allows you to write the old format files Do not use this unless you absolutely must do so The higher the sampling rate and resolution the better the sound quality Unfortunately the storage requirements are also directly proportional to both the sampling rate and resolution 6 000 Hz Telephone quality poor 6 053 Hz Telephone quality poor 7 200 Hz Telephon
34. memory It does not alter the original file on disk until you actually save the modified data Transform active can be tested in real time by playing the file after modification Transform active operations can be undone with the Edit Undo command Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 48 Transform active Vox Studio 3 User Guide The sample frequency of the currently active prompt is 22050 Hz 2000 Hz y Non standard sample rater MV Resample prompt to 5 00 ZRMS leader 300 msec IV Trim leaders and trailers under 26 02 dB to trailer 300 msec 26 02 dBY 65 00 ZRMS MV Normalize sound volume to 3 74 dB Center sound around 0 3 74 dBY C No No IV Apply an intelligibility filter with Weak clarity and Weak boost C Strong C Strong MV Lowpassfilterat 3000 Hz __ Weak M Apply a Medium DTMF filter High pass filter at 0 Hz C Strong Help Cancel All the default values to this dialog box can be preset using the Tools Defaults menu Resample prompt modifies the sample rate of the file i e the number of signal measurements performed per second According to the Nyquist theorem the highest frequency component in any sound file cannot exceed 1 2 the frequency at which the signal is sampled So when a file is down sampled re sampled at a lower sampling rate Vox Studio automatically filters th
35. occurs when detecting a silence lasting Generate filenames from a template 2000 Filenames will start with an alphabetic radix and oa 2 000 seconds end with a trailing counter 2 00 ZAMS Filename radix FileToCut Sound levels below 33 98 dB will be regarded Start counting at 0050 as silence 33 98 ECE 0 0 A E i 3 i _ Decimal Slicing session terminates at end of way file Count in al i 5 wav file Wav file folder Browse Help Save as default je Woxtudio WAYFILES OK This command allows you to select all the default operating parameters of the File Slicer These settings can be changed while working with the File Slicer itself by pressing the Parameters button Choose how the filenames for the sliced messages will be created You can select a script file in which case the filenames will be taken from the script file itself Caution If you don t enter a save prompt files to folder in the tape loader defaults then the complete path without extension though it is always wav has to be entered in the script file itself If a save prompt files to folder is entered in the file slicer defaults only a filename without any extension must be entered in the script file Instead of using a script file you can also have Vox Studio generate filenames automatically These will consist of a fixed alphabetic radix and a variable incrementing numerical suffix The numeric part
36. one more time after the first view you will see the last view The Previous View command can also be activated by clicking on in the toolbar section 5 4 9 Next View This command simply shows the next graphical screen s so that you can go back to another zoom or scroll position This only works if one or more Previous Screen commands has been issued before This command goes full cycle If you click one more time after the last view you will see the first view The Next View command can also be activated by clicking on in the toolbar section 5 5 Prompters menu The prompter and the tape loader are somewhat similar Both allow very fast recording of a large Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 42 Vox Studio 3 User Guide number of messages They work from microphone or from a tape input The file slicer allows slicing of a large wav file containing lots of concatenated prompts Prompter Tape Loader File Slicer 5 5 1 Prompter The Prompter command is used to very rapidly record a large number of prompts Script file fc WINDOWS Desktop Prompts txt Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres quarum unam incolunt Belgae aliam Aquitani tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae nostra Galli appellantur Hi omnes lingua institutis legibus inter se differunt Gallos ab Aquitanis Garumna flumen a Belgis Matrona et Sequana dividit Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae propterea quod a cultu atque humanitate provincia
37. oocccccccnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnininonons 16 Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Tape loader command coooooncnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn 45 Tape loader defaults oocccccnnnnnnnnnnono 88 Tape loader functionality ooooonnninnnnnnnnnnnn 11 Tape loader Options oococccocccnnnncnnnnccancnccnnnno 46 Technical support ooccocicccccccnncconancnnnnnos 98 122 Teleprompter osrin ha ia 43 Teleprompter functionality 11 Terminate the program seeen 38 Termin lo y nnna 128 Test before deleting oooocccnnnncninnnccccccccnnno 71 TOS MMS idad tia 120 Third party trademMarkS ooocoonnccnnnnicccccccnncos 127 Tile the graphs horizontally 96 Tile the graphs vertically cccccceeeeeees 96 Tips and techniques 114 Toolbar DULLONS cionado 99 TGS MENU iia eds 65 Touch tone detection cooncccccnncccncnnno 16 67 Touch tone filteridQ oooooocconnnnnnnnnnanicccnnnnno 16 Touch tone generation cccccceeeeeees 15 66 Trademark acknowledgements 127 Transform Active file o cccnnnnniniiimmmm 48 Undo previous Commands cccceeeeeeees 38 Ungroup indexed Dialogic command 61 Ungroup indexed NMS command 64 UninstallidQ ooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnncccccconnnnncrrrnccnnnno 20 Unregistered VersiON ccccccccccnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnos 123 Upgrading a license ooonooononnnncnonoccncnnnnno 121 U
38. printout to be included in our future mailings This is optional of course Print the license Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 19 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 4 2 Program Removal Uninstalling Vox Studio is easy From Windows click Start Settings Control Panel Add Remove Programs In the list select Vox Studio and click on Add Remove Add Remove Programs Properties EE Install Uninstall Windows Setup Startup Disk ll To install a new program from a floppy disk or CD ROM drive click Install 22 The following software can be automatically removed by y Windows To remove a program or to modify its installed components select it from the list and click Add Remove Vox Studio 3 a sl El Add Remove DK Cancel Apply This will remove Vox Studio but will not remove the other settings files folders and preferences you created after installing Vox Studio If you want to remove these too delete all files from your Vox Studio program directory and its subfolders if any Also remove the subdirectories containing your sound files if you no longer need them 4 3 System Requirements What system you need is partially a function of what you want to achieve Read the following guidelines to help you decide on which kind of PC you are going to install Vox Studio Windows requirements CPU and speed requirements Memory requirements Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 20 Vox Stud
39. sound format q The Save command can also be activated by clicking on in the toolbar section 5 2 6 Save As This opens a dialog box You can browse to the location where you want to save the file and you can also select the filename and extension the sound family the sound type and the sample frequency to save the file under If the selected file format is different from the original one a conversion is automatically done by Vox Studio Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 35 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Save in Y Voxfiles y Ej l c laa Alexfish vox laa D2 vox laa Fwait vox a Graham vox a Hotel vox a Mess01 vox File name Testfile Save as type Phonefiles vox H Cancel Sound family mueca El Sound type 6 726 32K ADPCM y Sample frequency s0004 O nd Wonstandardisamperate 5 2 7 Save All This saves all the files loaded in Vox Studio to their original location on disk The files are saved under their original names and in their original sound formats Naturally only files that have been modified are saved The Save All command can also be activated by clicking on in the toolbar section 5 2 8 Properties This opens an information window giving details about the active file Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 36 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Prompt information File name EN way l Family o Microsoft Wave Type 16 bits
40. subjects below Recording functionality Teleprompter functionality Tape Loader functionality File Slicer functionality Playback functionality Waveform Display functionality Conversion functionality Group and Ungroup functionality Offset Removal functionality Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 10 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Amplitude Normalization functionality Silence Adjustment functionality Intelligibility Filter DTMF Generation functionality DTMF Filtering functionality High and Low Pass filtering functionality 3 1 Recording functionality Clicking on the buttons of a user friendly recorder like device starts recording Prompts are recorded one by one and can be played back immediately for verification or editing before being saved For mass recording sessions where lots of files are involved you should use the prompter or the tape loader functions instead These are described further in this documentation You can easily record 8 bit and 16 bit wav files at preselected frequencies ranging from 6 KHz to 64 KHz or you can select completely arbitrary frequencies in the same range 3 2 Teleprompter functionality The on screen prompter allows fast recording of lots of multimedia wav files It uses an ASCII text file script which you prepare to flash prompt messages one by one on the PC s screen Simply tapping the space bar or clicking a mouse button while reading the messages as they appear on the screen re
41. t feel like entering this every time you can preset this as a default using the Tools Defaults menu The extension to the output filenames can be the same as the input filename it can be removed or another one can replace it Page 56 Vox Studio 3 User Guide The sampling frequency can modify the sample rate of the file e the number of signal measurements performed per second According to the Nyquist theorem the highest frequency component in any sound file cannot exceed 1 2 the frequency at which the file is sampled So when a file is down sampled resampled at a lower sampling rate Vox Studio automatically filters the file to remove the components above 1 2 the sampling frequency before doing the re sampling Naturally when a file is up sampled resampled at a higher sampling rate there is no way Vox Studio can add frequency components that are not present in the file or have been removed by previous down sampling In other words down sampling will necessarily result in a file with a lower bandwidth but up sampling will not increase the file s frequency content Thus when you do a down sampling followed by a reverse up sampling the resulting file will not be the original If that is the intent you should reload the original file from disk instead Downsampling irremediably deteriorates a file and should always be the last thing you do to a file You can select any of the standard telephony or multimedia sample rates from a list but
42. the filtering that is necessary for sample rate conversion transparently and you do not need to apply any pre or post conversion filters See the chapter on Sound File Formats for a complete summary of what files Vox Studio can record play back convert or otherwise manipulate See the Convert menu chapter for more information on how to convert files 3 8 Editing Functionality Sound files loaded in Vox Studio can be manually edited You can zoom in on part of a signal select a portion of the sound signal then make a copy of it to the clipboard cut it to the clipboard or simply delete it The clipboard content can then be pasted again into the same or another sound signal within Vox Studio With the editing capability missing words can be added superfluous noises can be cut out and sound files can be combined Read more about editing in the Edit menu chapter 3 9 Multi prompt file functionality Some telephony hardware manufacturers promote the use of multi prompt files These files contain more than one message Such files are also called indexed files It is therefore important to be able to create indexed files and to modify single messages within the indexed files You can load an indexed file in Vox Studio then view or edit the content of each separate message contained in the indexed file and then save the indexed file back to disk Indexed files appear in the file tree panel as one icon for the indexed file with as many sub
43. to the terms of this EULA Each License ID has its own associated License Key and all License ID s are tracked individually by Xentec and its resellers Each License ID Key pair is unique and allows full tracking of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT origin Fraudulent use of License information will be prosecuted to the maximum extent permitted by law For your own protection you must at all times keep your License Key secret Not for Resale Software If the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is labeled Not for Re sale or NFR or NFS then notwithstanding other sections of this EULA you may not resell or otherwise transfer for value or for free the SOFTWARE PRODUCT Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 124 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Test Software If the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is labeled Alpha Version or Beta Version or Alpha Test or Beta Test or Alpha or Beta or Test Version or Test or Development Version or any similar term then notwithstanding other sections of this EULA you may not resell or otherwise transfer for value or for free the SOFTWARE PRODUCT You must stop using a test version and obtain a regular licensed version of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT as soon as the beta test period ends or as soon as the regular commercial version of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is released Demo Software If the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is labeled Demo Version or Unregistered Version or Demo or Unregistered or Evaluation Version or Evaluation or any similar term the
44. trademark of Creative Technology Ltd SoundDesigner II Popular Mac program from DigiDesign to produce and manipulate quality sound files Talking Technology US provider of components and tools to assemble computer telephony systems Talk off Talk off is a problem that occurs when a voice signal closely resembles a DTMF tone pair and activates erroneous detection of DTMF digits Threshold Limit of amplitude or energy below which a signal causes no action or detection to take place TouchTone An alternative name for DTMF TouchTone is trademark of AT amp T in the US and is used by other companies in other territories Trailing At the end of the sound file Voice mail Analogous to Electronic Mail except uses recorded voice messages instead of text messages Can go from simple multi user answering device functionality to complex office communication center functionality Voicetek US provider of computer telephony systems now part of Aspect Telecommunications Volume Loudness of sound signal VU meter The good old VU meter usually a needle instrument measures speech power in decibels 1 milliwatt is the reference The Vox Studio monitor is not calibrated in decibels and serves essentially as a visual indicator for correct recording level Wave The usual type name given to multimedia sound files recorded in Microsoft s standard waveform file format This covers a variety of encoding and sampling rate formats Wave files contain a
45. vox indexed files are compatible with the standard NMS vox indexed files as produced by the manual voice editors sold by Natural MicroSystems and their resellers A script file is used to tell Vox Studio which stand alone files to regroup in an indexed file This script file is identical in content to the script file used for the prompter and tape loader commands See elsewhere for a detailed definition of the script file format If the files to be grouped are chosen manually i e you are not using a script file for the grouping operation you can press the Prompt Ordering button to open the prompt ordering window and select the physical order under which you want the files to appear in the indexed file The prompt index number inside the indexed file will be the same as the sequence number chosen here Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 63 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Prompt ordering Seven way Pressing the up and down arrow buttons moves the selected file up or down in the list You can keep those buttons pressed to move a file over a long distance in the list 5 6 7 Ungroup from NMS indexed file Allows expansion of a NMS indexed telephony file usually vox into its stand alone voice file components usually vox or vce Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 64 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Ungroup from Natural Microsystems indexed file Bowe F Browse C VYoxtudio VOXFILES CWoxtudio 9 s a C VYo
46. when down sampling voice files and a Boost option which produces variable signal amplification in Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 58 Vox Studio 3 User Guide order to increase the perceived voice energy content of the recorded file The Intelligibility Filter can be selected only while doing a Convert Active Convert Current or a Batch Conversion operation Intelligibility Filter options are set in the defaults section for the conversion functions Usually a weak clarity filter and no boost is the best choice Use trial and error to select the options that suit your voice files best Low and high pass filter allows individual selection of either a high pass low cut or a low pass high cut filter For the high pass and low pass filters the 3 dB cutoff frequencies can be chosen with a 1 Hz resolution According to the Nyquist theorem the highest frequency component in any sampled file cannot exceed 1 2 the frequency at which the file is sampled Audible aliasing errors occur whenever the Nyquist theorem is overlooked It makes little sense to select a cutoff frequency above 1 2 the sampling frequency of the file DTMF filter removes signal components at and near the frequencies that correspond to one group of the DTMF frequencies This harsh treatment effectively removes talk off problems but also degrades the sound quality somewhat Use this only on files that really do cause talk off problems and cannot be rerecorded The DTM
47. you can also input a custom non standard sample rate if you need to While converting you can also adjust leading and trailing silence improve intelligibility normalize the sound amplitude or filter the sound These options can be selected using a tabbed section of the dialog box Trim leaders and trailers allows easy production of prompt files with uniform leading and trailing blanks What used to be a time consuming manual editing task has now become as easy as selecting a button with your mouse The rest is done for you automatically Automatic silence adjustment is a threshold activated process and thus requires spotless clean recordings If you have background noise in your recordings Vox Studio may incorrectly detect the beginning and end of sound in your file The dialog box allows you to select the threshold level Vox Studio uses to detect the difference between silence and non silence The current file will be scanned for sound level and Vox Studio will automatically detect the beginning and end of sound in the file based on the threshold you selected It will then adjust the length of leading and trailing silence to a fixed number of milliseconds which can be the same for all your files The threshold level can be set either as a percentage of the maximum on screen amplitude or as a threshold value in dB dBm or dBV The silence duration itself is defined in the Tools Defaults Convert Active menu A reasonable typical value wou
48. you have a silent studio area Better microphones will also have a lower inherent electrical noise factor Cheap microphones are usually not directional and pick up all sorts of noises and room echoes giving the recording a very amateurish sound Use a low impedance hyper directional microphone and keep mic cables short shielded and away Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 115 Vox Studio 3 User Guide from power cables and outlets Ground your PC system at one point only Hum at 50 or 60 Hz in a lab or office environment is an interference that plagues many aspiring sound engineers If possible do not record frequency content below 100Hz it does not get transmitted over the telephone network bandwidth anyway Avoid recording in concert halls empty basements or stuffy closets The room s reverberation time and echoes have a very palpable influence on sound quality For simplicity imagine reverberation being the time it takes a hard clap with the hands to die out decay until you can t hear it anymore while echo is the fact that you can actually hear a second or maybe even a third clap The reverberation time depends on the structure of the walls floor and ceiling The more they absorb sound the shorter the reverberation time will be The ideal situation is when the reverberation time is short and independent of the sound s frequency This is very difficult to achieve in a normal office environment but exists in professional s
49. 108489 samples 4 Sec 920 You can see what relative part of the sound file has been selected even if the file has been zoomed in The current selection shows in yellow in the position bar on top of the graph window If the file has been zoomed in then the position bar still shows the selected segment but it may now look like this The white part is the visible window the black part is the sound that is currently not shown in the window the yellow part is the current selection if any To remove a selection click outside the graph area near the graph borders where the scales are If a sound section is selected the section will play when pressing the play button and the selection will be edited when doing a copy cut delete or paste operation If you just click once inside a graph without dragging the cursor then only a vertical cursor line will be placed on the graph This is the starting point for a play operation or the insertion point when you do a paste operation If there is neither a selection nor a cursor then the whole file will play when you press the play button and any pasted sound will be inserted at the end of the file 5 1 6 Zooming in and out Zooming is done with the Zoom toolbar buttons a gt a Click the Q button The button remains active until you press it again The cursor changes into a magnifying glass Use your mouse to select a sound segment The selected segment will be expanded on screen so that it wil
50. 126 Vox Studio 3 User Guide NO EVENT SHALL XENTEC OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL INCIDENTAL INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS BUSINESS INTERRUPTION LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION OR ANY OTHER PECUNIARY LOSS ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT OR THE PROVISION OF OR FAILURE TO PROVIDE SUPPORT SERVICES EVEN IF XENTEC HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES IN ANY CASE XENTEC S ENTIRE LIABILITY UNDER ANY PROVISION OF THIS EULA SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE AMOUNT ACTUALLY PAID BY YOU FOR THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT 8 6 Third party trademarks All product brand and service marks mentioned in the Vox Studio program manual documentation help files support files web site technical and commercial publications and written or spoken correspondence are trade service marks or registered trade service marks of their respective holders and are fully acknowledged as such Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 127 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 9 Glossary Glossary of Computer Telephony Terms Glossary 9 1 Glossary sd2 An extension given to ProTools SoundDesigner II files This file extension covers several sample rates Sd2 files are stand alone files that have no header snd An extension given to many types of PC sound files This generic file extension covers a variety of encoding formats and sampling
51. 1996 2001 Page 98 Vox Studio 3 User Guide e This is where you will find address phone fax and email information to contact Xentec or your direct reseller for new orders technical support suggestions for new features complaints or compliments We would love to hear from you in order to improve Vox Studio e Important to request pricing place new or upgrade orders and obtain technical support always contact the company from whom you originally purchased this product 5 9 6 About Vox Studio The About Vox Studio command pops up a box that gives you program version information and serialization information identifying the legal owner of this package In order to protect you the legal owner of this package and trace any abusive copying of the program your serialization information is encoded in various Vox Studio program files and is fully traceable 5 10 Toolbars buttons keyboard and mouse This chapter describes the toolbar button shortcuts which provide access to menu commands that otherwise would require a few more mouse clicks to access Also described in this chapter are the contextual menus that are accessible by a mouse button right click on the graph windows Toolbar buttons Player Recorder buttons Right click contextual menu Keyboard shortcuts 5 10 1 Toolbar butttons The tool bar located just below the menu bar is a shortcut for the most used commands GacosgSae a 49 ama l gt Oax peze
52. 5 Manual and Help file ooooooonnnnnniinnnnnnnniannnnno 5 Memory requirements 22 Microlog Intela forMatS ooooonnniconnccnnnnnnnn 109 Microphone requirement n s 23 Microphone signal level ceeeeeeee 67 Microsoft ADPCM format 0 eeeeee 109 Mixer editor and volume applets 115 Monitor the input SiONal ooooninnncccnnnnninnncccnc 67 Move within a zoomed file 41 Moving in a graph seenen 32 Multimedia sound support requirement 23 Multi message files cceeeeeeeeeeeeetees 13 Multi prompt files ooooonoonnninnnnccnnnnnacccn coco 13 My files do not sound right 119 Natural Microsystems formats 205 109 NeW file tn 3 asia awit ee 33 Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Newvoice formats sssssssssessssssseeeees 110 Next and Sun formats eeeeeeeee 110 NORT Vi Win 42 NMSwOnmats rined a a 109 NMS indexed files 62 NMS Vox file indexing 62 NMS Vox file to standalone conversion 64 Nortel Generations formats 0008 110 Objectives of Vox StUAO ooooocccnncncnnnncccccncoo 8 OSE reMOVal wet lenin 14 OK I Mile 1OrMal wether 111 Open commandi ar arinrin aa 33 Operating system requirements 00 21 OPLIONS a aene aaa aaa a aaa e ea baaa setts 75 Output format defaults
53. 5 1 User Interface The User Interface chapter describes The Main Window which controls Vox Studio Maximizing and Minimizing windows Dragging files to Vox Studio to load them for editing or conversion Dragging files to Vox Studio to play them through your sound card Selecting a sound segment Zooming in and out Scrolling in a zoomed graph 5 1 1 Main window The main Vox Studio window looks like this Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 25 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Yox Studio Iof xi File Edit View Prompters Convert Tools Window Help JPEE EEES fa Hotel vox Iof x E e a i W Hotel vox Indexed vap m 1 m 2 m 3 E 4 Message 0 waw messageD2 m 1 3 000 10 000 12 000 14 000 i NMS VOX 64K Mu law prompt 1 Mono 8000 Hz 365000 samples ee jojojo jj X Z Ready Most program and graph windows including the main window of Vox Studio itself can be resized by holding the cursor over the bottom right corner of the window until a double arrow appears and then clicking and dragging until the window has the desired size Double clicking the colored program title bar at the very top is a simple trick to rapidly maximize the size of the main Vox Studio window Another double click on the title bar will restore the window to its previous size All commands can be activated from the menu bar at the top of the main Vox
54. BV and dBm levels used in Vox Studio will correspond to the real world dBV and dBm levels on your target system Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 92 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 7 13 13 DTMF defaults DTMF defaults M Generation parameters Detection parameters Low freq High freq Both 6 31 Zp group group groups saz 25 12 2512 50 24 Zpp Minimum tone amplitude 24 00 dB BE a 24 00 dev BY 200 00 pp Amplitudes 12 00 12 00 8 9 12 00 12 00 8 9 a oo a Low High freg groups relative amplitudes Maximum twist level 6 02 dB C Independent Equal High 2dB 602 6 02 dBY Tone duration msec Inter tone duration MSEC Minimum tone duration 40 msec Pause duration me Minimum pause duration 30 msec msec msec Help f Cancel DTMF tones consist of a mixture of tones from two frequency groups For DTMF generation these settings define the relative amplitude of both frequency groups The amplitudes can be set to be equal for both groups to be twisted by 2dB the high frequencies are more attenuated on some phone lines so they are sometimes set 2dB higher than the low frequency group or to be set independently for both frequency groups Leading silence duration i Trailing silence duration The duration and separation of tone bursts can be set as well as the duration of pauses silences
55. Belgium A tiny humid kingdom of 10 million inhabitants Belgium is bordered by France the North Sea The Netherlands Germany and Luxembourg Renowned for its dark chocolate delicate lace hot waffles specialty beers good food and Vox Studio Xentec is located in an outer suburb of Brussels the capital of Belgium and nerve center of the European Union Bicom US provider of components and tools to assemble computer telephony systems CCITT Comit Consultatif International de T l graphie et T l phonie Based in Geneva Switzerland this permanent consultative committee of the International Telecommunications Union ITU elaborates and publishes a variety of international telecommunications standards Centigram US provider of computer telephony systems Compand COMpress exPAND a technique to reduce the dynamic range of a signal and then restore it to close to its original form CPU Central processing unit The brainy part of your PC Creative Labs A provider of multimedia and telephony components Also known as Creative Technology Creative Technology A provider of multimedia and telephony components Also known as Creative Labs CTI Computer Telephony Integration A fashionable term for what not so long ago used to be called simply voice processing CTI has become a generic term for computer controlled or computer assisted telephony applications CVSD Continuously Variable Slope Delta modulation A time tested codin
56. F filter has 3 strengths you can choose from weak attenuates 10 dB medium attenuates 20 dB and strong attenuates 30 dB Use the weakest filter that solves your talk off problem The Batch Convert command can also be activated by clicking on in the toolbar section 5 6 4 Group to Dialogic indexed file Group to Dialogic indexed file allows concatenation of several stand alone telephony voice files often with a vox extension into one single indexed Dialogic telephony voice file often with a vap extension One of the very nice features in this version of Vox Studio is that you can group any type of single prompt file into a grouped indexed file If a format conversion is necessary Vox Studio does the conversion transparently on the fly It is thus possible for instance to start with single prompt wav files and group them into a vap file as a single operation There is no need to start with Dialogic files to obtain a Dialogic indexed grouped file To be grouped input files have to be single prompt files they cannot themselves be multi prompt grouped files Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 59 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Group to Dialogic indexed file m Browse Browse C Woxtudios Prompts txt C Voxtudio oxfiles Piainpt GIG Enna CWoxtudios Indexed Files 8000 Hz 8000 Hz Vox Studio vap indexed files are compatible with the standard Dialogic vap indexed files as produced by the manual v
57. F pair Text of prompt 1 on as many lines as needed CR LF pair CR LF pair Filename for prompt 2 no extension here CR LF pair Short annotation or title for prompt 2 CR LF pair Text of prompt 2 on as many lines as needed CR LF pair CR LF pair and so on Filename for prompt n CR LF pair Copyright O Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 103 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Short annotation or title for prompt n CR LF pair Text of prompt n on as many lines as needed CR LF pair CR LF pair End Script CR LF pair Script files for NMS indexed files A script file is a pure text file All lines are terminated with the Enter key Carriage Return Line Feed pair The file begins with Begin Script and ends with End Script The filenames have NO extension The extension is wav by default for the Prompter and Tape Loader The prompt index is a sequence number for each prompt and is required by NMS applications The text for the prompts uses as many lines as necessary and is followed by an additional empty line a lone CR LF pair This text appears in the main window when you are using the Prompter If you do not use the prompt text lines when using the Tape Loader for instance or when grouping files you may replace them by an empty line if you prefer You do not have to replace unused lines by blanks If you leave them in the same script file will be usable for the Prompter the Tape Loader the File Slicer and the Group operation
58. Generations formats OKI file formats Philips VoiceManager formats PhoneBlaster formats Raw PCM formats Rockwell formats SCII format SoundDesigner II format Mac Voicetek Generations formats Windows Wave formats 6 2 1 Bicom format The proprietary Bicom format supported in Vox Studio is of the 4 bit ADPCM type The supported sample rate is 8KHz This is a headerless file format 6 2 2 ITU CCITT formats The ITU CCITT coding formats Vox Studio supports are all sampled at 8 KHz Refer to the ITU G series publications for a detailed description of the supported algorithms Vox Studio supports two ITU CCITT companding algorithms G 711 and 8 ITU CCITT ADPCM compression algorithms G 721 G 726 The ITU ADPCM algorithms are very processor intensive you need a fast PC G 711 Vox Studio supports the ITU G 711 specification for A law and Mu law companding See the glossary in this documentation for a brief description of A law and Mu law G 721 32 KBps ADPCM 4 bits at 8 000 samples s See the glossary in this documentation for a brief description of ADPCM G 726 40 KBps ADPCM 5 bits at 8 000 samples s 32 KBps ADPCM 4 bits at 8 000 samples s 24 KBps ADPCM 3 bits at 8 000 samples s 16 KBps ADPCM 2 bits at 8 000 samples s Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 105 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 6 2 3 Centigram formats Three Centigram ADPCM file formats are supported under Vox Studio All are ADPCM variants sa
59. OrmatS isa tardar triana aerea 105 623 COntigraM O Malos iciicirn end a dana tana e a ceda a lace 106 624 A O 106 6 2 9 Elan Inftormatique formatia a a aaa eaaced abe aa a aa adan ARAARA tte 108 6 2 6 Group 2000 TOMAS soterrado aa aaa aa ae a aa a aE 108 6 2 7 IBM Directalk forma E aa aaa a a sod de rel tera hood seed a AA nnd LE 108 A MAAD OM aaa a aaa a aaa a aa a aa aa aa a AEA EROAA 108 6 2 9 J Inter Voice Oma Sa a a er ra aaa aa ae A aa a aa taaan 109 6 2 10 Microlog Intela fOrmatss aaa aa aaa aa a l aaaea ebena 109 6 2 11 Microsoft ADPCM aa aa a aa aa ale araa 109 6 2 12 Natural Microsystems formats oooconccccnnnconancccnnncnnnnnnnnnnncnn cnn nana nn nn nnn nn nc nan nn nn nnnccnnnns 109 6 2 13 NEAR 110 6 2 14 NET 110 6 2 15 Nortel Generations fOrMatS oooccccnncccnnnccoonccnnnnnnannncnnnnnnnnncnnnnnn nn nn cnn nana nn nan rnnnncnnnnnes 110 6 2 16 ITS TO Mais rada Meat eevee 111 6 2 17 Philips VoiceManager formats oooooncocicccoccconnnccconnnonnnnnonnnnna anno nn nnn cnn nn anne rn nara n nn ranas 111 6 2 18 PhoneBlaster formats oooooccconnccccnnncccnonnnonnncconnnnnn nono nn ncnnnnnn anna n rra cnn anna nn nn nn nnnnnn nn nannnnes 111 6 2 19 Raw PCMH Orinats A A O E E O orina 111 6 2 20 ROCKWEOITO MAIS O E E E OO 112 6 2 21 SEMA MA E E E O OOE E E E A does 112 6 2 22 SoundDesigner II for Mat oooonnnnoninnccccnnnnonananonanncnonnnnrrn rn cnn nn nr rana rre 112 6 2 23 Voicetek Aspect Generations fOrMatS
60. Page 123 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 8 5 End User License Agreement END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR XENTEC VOX STUDIO IMPORTANT READ CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING This End User License Agreement EULA is a legal agreement between you either an individual or a single entity and Xentec NV for the Xentec software product identified above which includes computer software and may include associated media printed materials and online or electronic documentation SOFTWARE PRODUCT By installing copying or otherwise using any version of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT you agree to be bound by the terms of this EULA If you do not agree to the terms of this EULA do not install register or use the SOFTWARE PRODUCT you may however return it to your place of purchase for a full refund excluding shipping charges from and to your place of purchase as described below SOFTWARE PRODUCT LICENSE The SOFTWARE PRODUCT is protected by copyright laws and international copyright treaties as well as other intellectual property laws and treaties The SOFTWARE PRODUCT is licensed not sold 1 GRANT OF LICENSE This EULA grants you the following rights For each SOFTWARE PRODUCT licensed you may install and use one copy of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT or of any prior version for the same operating system on one single computer 2 DESCRIPTION OF OTHER RIGHTS AND LIMITATIONS e License Key This SOFTWARE PRODUCT is distributed as a limited unregistered demo
61. SOFTWARE PRODUCT A SOFTWARE PRODUCT labeled as an upgrade replaces and or supplements the product that formed the basis for your eligibility for the upgrade When upgrading to a later version of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT you must immediately discontinue use of any prior version You may use the resulting upgraded product only in accordance with the terms of this EULA If the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is an upgrade of a component of a package of software programs that you licensed as a single product the SOFTWARE PRODUCT may be used and transferred only as Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 125 Vox Studio 3 User Guide part of that single product package and may not be separated for use on more than one computer 4 COPYRIGHT All title and copyrights in and to the SOFTWARE PRODUCT including but not limited to any images photographs animations video audio music text and technologies incorporated into the SOFTWARE PRODUCT the accompanying on disk printed or on line materials and any copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT are owned by Xentec or its suppliers The SOFTWARE PRODUCT is protected by copyright laws and international treaty provisions Therefore you must treat the SOFTWARE PRODUCT like any other copyrighted material except that you may install the SOFTWARE PRODUCT on a single computer provided you keep the original solely for backup or archival purposes You may not copy the printed materials accompanying the SOFTWARE PRODUCT For each license
62. User Guide The dialog box allows you to select the threshold level Vox Studio uses to detect the difference between silence and non silence The current file will be scanned for sound level and Vox Studio will automatically detect the beginning and end of sound in the file based on the threshold you selected It will then adjust the length of leading and trailing silence to a fixed number of milliseconds which can be the same for all your files The threshold level can be set either as a percentage of the maximum on screen amplitude or as a threshold value in dB dBm or dBV The silence duration itself is defined in the Tools Defaults Convert Active menu A reasonable typical value would be 300 milliseconds Note that the Leader Trailer option is actually capable of adding silence to your file if you request more leading or trailing silence than your file actually contains If the voice files you are trimming are not recorded in optimal conditions it may be very useful to perform a Center or a Normalize operation on your file before you apply the Leader Trailer command This has the effect of flattening the low frequency or DC signal background on the zero line and pumping up the signal which makes it so much easier to perform good threshold detection on your signal Normalize sound volume allows easy and rapid production of prompt files with equal and for most telephony applications preferably reasonably high sound volume levels Th
63. VOXTUDIONYS 300BE TA voxbatch log IV Upon completion play following wav file Browse Browse C WINDOWS MEDIA Notify way All the default values to this dialog box can be preset using the Tools Defaults menu e Convert from allows you to select the convert from file family type and sample rate If this information is written in the files themselves in the file header then Vox Studio will find the Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 information automatically like in wav files Many other file formats especially the telephony formats do not contain that information and then this has to be supplied to Vox Studio because the program has no other way of finding out what the input is All input source files should have the same format All converted output files will have the same format The browse button allows you to navigate to and select multiple files literally thousands of files or even a complete directory to convert You can use the standard Windows file selection techniques to indicate which files need converting Click left Shift Click left CTRL Click left all work as usual See your Windows manual on how to select multiple files in a selection box The good old command from ancient DOS times works here too and selects all the files in the folder Convert to you always have to fully describe the sound family and sound type you want to convert to Vox Studio cannot guess this If you don
64. Vox Studio 3 User Guide Vox Studio 3 User Guide Xentec Xentec nv De Helftwinning 2 3070 Kortenberg Belgium 32 2 757 0666 32 2 757 0777 www xentec be Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 1 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 1 A NN 5 1 1 Available documentation formats oooccoccccnnncconccoconcccnnnn conan nn nn cnn nn nc nan n nn nn cnn anar nn nr nn ranas 5 2 INtrODUCHON iia 7 2 1 Introduction to VOX SUAIO ccooonnnoccccnnnccccncananannnnnnnnnananncncnnnnnnnnnnnnnn cnn nn cnn nn n naar EEES AA ran 7 2 2 The program philosophy i iii anat 8 3 Functional iu arca anna Gann 10 3 1 Recording Tunctionality icici 11 3 2 Teleprompter functiONalitY oooonnnnninnncnnnnnnnnnnconnnnnnnnncnnnnnnnnncnnnnncnn narran rra nn nr rana nn nr nrnnn nr nnnnn 11 3 3 Tape Loader functionally arire aana aa aaa nn nana aa nn nn cnn nana ads 11 3 4 AS A NN 11 3 57 Playback functionality i v tae wisi divinities cine 12 3 06 Waveform display functionality estocada liada 12 du Conversioniunctionallty eis aa a cone deis 12 3 9 Editing FUNCIONA creta a a e een nas eden cado nde DL 13 3 9 Multitorompt fileTunctionalityssccchectecetecececertagettctee rita anat 13 3710 Offset removal functionality temeridad aaa cath Daa aa are enata 14 3 11 Sound volume normalization functionality cecccceeeeeeeeeeeeeneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaeeeeeeeeseeaeaaaes 14 3 12 Silence trimming functionality s iera hanea en aa Aa A EA AARNES 14 3
65. ably silent recording room Vox Studio starts by recording standard Windows wav files If required these can be edited in Vox Studio and then converted into telephony files encoded in various flavors of ADPCM A law PCM Mu law PCM linear PCM and other formats In fact you can convert a message from any supported format to any other supported format Vox Studio does support a very large portfolio of manufacturer specific file formats lt can also convert sound files prepared on a Mac into telephony files This makes the product useful both for telephony system administrators or integrators and for recording studios The Vox Studio conversion quality is superb and this is one of the reasons why this product has become an industry standard Massive prompt recording sessions up to thousands of prompts are facilitated by the teleprompter by the tape loader and by the file slicer functions built into Vox Studio The prompter flashes texts one by one on the PC s screen while they are read by the voice talent the speaker It is a very easy and productive way of recording a large number of prompts in one session The tape loader automatically digitizes cuts and saves a prerecorded studio tape without operator intervention The file slicer does the same thing by cutting a large pre existing wav file into voice slices Professional studio recordings can be chopped in pieces very rapidly and saved as separate digital voice files Another
66. acquired you may have one hard copy of any on disk or on line documentation accompanying the SOFTWARE PRODUCT 5 MULTIPLE MEDIA SOFTWARE You may receive the SOFTWARE PRODUCT in more than one medium or as an electronic transmission or electronic message Regardless of the type or size of the medium you receive you may use only one medium that is appropriate for your single computer You may not use or install the other medium on another computer You may not loan rent lease or otherwise transfer the other medium to another user except as part of the permanent transfer as provided above of the complete SOFTWARE PRODUCT MISCELLANEOUS If you acquired this product in or from Belgium Belgian law governs this EULA If this product was acquired outside Belgium or from a local reseller then local law may apply Should you have any questions concerning this EULA or if you desire to contact Xentec for any reason please contact the Xentec reseller serving your country or write to Xentec NV De Helftwinning 2 3070 Kortenberg Belgium We can also be reached by electronic mail at sales xentec be LIMITED WARRANTY LIMITED WARRANTY Xentec warrants that a the SOFTWARE PRODUCT will perform substantially in accordance with the accompanying written materials for a period of ninety 90 days from the date of receipt and b any Support Services provided by Xentec shall be substantially as described in applicable written materials provided to you b
67. age level of energy of say 70 in the Normalize command you can get sound spikes whose amplitude will very briefly be clipped at 100 For voice recordings this happens on very short sounds like T P and K which are explosive sounds anyway and where amplitude saturation does not matter very much This technique allows recording Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 53 Vox Studio 3 User Guide at as high a level as possible with best possible telephony quality A similar technique is used when recording with a recording device that has a recording meter and adjusting the level to remain below 0 dB most of the time green area lights but allowing some very short spikes to exceed 0 dB red area lights briefly The best practical approach is to calibrate your Vox Studio recording and playback setup once and for all by fine tuning your recording settings You can use the monitor function and the graphical display function to do that Your signal should go from time to time in the red range on the Monitor VU meter and should use at least 75 of the available amplitude range shown on the graphical waveform display screen It does not matter too much if your signal peaks sometimes and briefly we mean briefly hits the ceiling or the floor This usually will happen for utterances with T P and K where a little clipping does not matter so much You should select a preferred normalization factor that gives best volume and quality results when playe
68. an choose to work in dB mode where the power levels of the sound files are shown on screen in decibels Last but not least there is also an input monitor which does not display the content of a file but rather shows the signal present at the sound card input This makes it easy to adjust the sensitivity of your recording setup The monitor has three display modes waveform VU meter and spectral display 3 7 Conversion functionality Vox Studio converts any file format it knows to any other file format it knows This includes the capability to change the sampling rate downwards and upwards as well as the coding or compression algorithm You can for instance convert a 44 1 KHz wav file into a 6 KHz ADPCM file or convert a Mu law PCM file at 8 KHz into an A law PCM file at 8 KHz You could even do unusual operations like converting a 6 KHz ADPCM voicemail file into a 22 KHz wav multimedia file This would for instance allow you to review voicemail files on a normal PC running Windows Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 12 Vox Studio 3 User Guide The amplitude of the recorded signals is left unchanged by the conversion processes You can however elect to activate the Normalize Sound Volume option during conversion This gives you the ability to do post recording amplitude adjustments You can also apply a variety of filters during conversion Conversion and filtering of files can be done in one step Vox Studio does all
69. anager formats The Philips file formats supported by Vox Studio are formats with a file header The usual extension for Philips VoiceManager formats is vsn You can select between the following codings A law PCM Mu law PCM OKI ADPCM at 6 or 8 KHz 6 2 18 PhoneBlaster formats PhoneBlaster files are files that have a file header The ones supported by Vox Studio correspond to the format used by the SuperVoice application from Pacific Image That application comes with the PhoneBlaster card The PhoneBlaster SuperVoice coding algorithm supported by Vox Studio is 4 bits ADPCM at 7 2 KHz 6 2 19 Raw PCM formats The Raw PCM formats are generic formats not readily associated with a card or system manufacturer Under Raw formats you will find only headerless formats sometimes at unusual sampling rates For instance A law is a companding law that is always used at 8 000 samples per second in the telephony world If you select Raw PCM Formats we will in fact allow you to produce A law files at any frequency from 6 KHz to 64 KHz the same is true for the other raw formats The raw formats are provided for knowledgeable users use them with circumspection 16 bit and 8 bit Linear PCM Linear PCM data is the pure uncompressed and uncompanded binary code representation of the value of an analogue signal e g voice after digitization Vox Studio can record 8 and 16 bit linear PCM from 6 000 up to 48 000 samples per second Of
70. ancel f By default Vox Studio looks for files in the directories defined in the Tools Defaults Folder defaults menu Vox Studio also looks by default for wav files or telephony files as defined in the same default menu You can change these defaults at any time or you can change the proposed default on the fly while using Vox Studio This behavior is intended to simplify the work of those who have to manipulate thousands of files all located in the same folder and all of the same type If you just want to edit a single file this behavior may not be that helpful If the file you open is a file type which has a recognizable header wav and vsn files have such headers for instance then Vox Studio gets all the file information it needs from the header portion of the file and will not bother you with additional questions Vox Studio however cannot guess what kind of sound data you have in your files unless it is explicitly written in the file or unless you tell Vox Studio what it is Therefore if the file you open is a headerless file Dialogic vox for instance or a file with a non recognizable header then when needed Vox Studio will open a dialog box and request additional information about the file such as sample rate and coding format Prompt input format Format of D2W0DX Sound farnily Sound Designer 2 y Sound type 16 bits linear Ed Sampling frequency 48000 Hz y Won standard sample rater
71. and some limited graphical sound editor to test the card s hardware Most brand name products do 4 3 7 Microphone A directional microphone is the best companion to Vox Studio It helps reduce stray noises from the PC s power supply fan coughing colleagues in the office passing airplanes the office photocopier or fax etc You don t need a very expensive microphone just a very directional one The poor transmission quality of the telephone networks does not justify an expensive studio microphone A directional microphone that picks up nothing else but your spoken words and no background noise is however a real blessing Make sure the output impedance of your microphone is matched to the input impedance of your sound card Also in case your sound card has both a line input and a microphone input make sure you connect the microphone to the correct input Typically line inputs expect a high AC input voltage from a high impedance device Microphone inputs on the contrary expect a low AC input voltage Try your microphone with the built in recording capability of Windows before you purchase a Vox Studio license 4 3 8 Headphone Although this is not actually a requirement sound files can be played over your usual multimedia speakers headphones are perfect to evaluate the quality of files you have just recorded or converted Watch for those tiny background noises and slight breathing or paper shuffling sounds Of course if Copyright
72. ays generates mono files for telephony purposes The Sound Mapper also sometimes allows using sampling frequencies normally not offered by your sound device You may then be able to work at sample rates that your card s hardware driver cannot support directly To see if you have the Sound Mapper installed simply click on the drop down listbox in the Device frame all available devices will show 5 8 Window menu If you have lots of sound files open simultaneously in Vox Studio it will from time to time be necessary to reorganize the way files are shown by repositioning the graph windows Rather than do it all by hand window by window you can use the Cascade and Tile commands to reposition all windows automatically Cascade Tile Horizontally Tile Vertically 5 8 1 Cascade BLEEKE ioj xi CY Demo way Iof x c 7 FR way C WoxtudioWVAYFILESIGM WoicesiFR wav p p p k 100 50 0 50 100 PNE V a a a a S a a ce a ro 0 000 2 000 4 000 6 000 16 bits linear Wave Mono 22050 Hz 182330 samples 8 Se After a cascade command all windows will be positioned in the graph pane with the active window fully displayed on top and all other windows slightly offset from and positioned under the topmost window Only the topmost window will be fully visible Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 95 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 8 2 Tile Horizontally C oxtudio Proprietary Formats NMSuUntro voxprom
73. be used for indexed filenames The vap extension is usually used for Dialogic indexed files while the stand alone voice files often have the vox extension Specify the default coding and sample rate to be used for indexed files Specify the default maximum number of prompts per indexed file header space for that many files will be reserved in the file Choose this number somewhat larger than the largest number of prompts you typically have in an indexed file Select the default directory where the separate prompt files typically reside Specify the default format family coding and sample rate to be used for the separate prompt files Select the default directory where the script files typically reside and the script file extension usually txt Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 90 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 7 13 11 Group and Ungroup NMS defaults Group Ungroup Natural Microsystems indexed defaults Indexed file Prompt files Script file Location Prompt files folder i i C Woxtudio WOXFILES Prompt filenames extension vce Prompt format Sound family Natural Microsystems Sound type vce 32K NMS ADPCM y Sampling frequency 8000 Hz z Won stendard sample rate Help Save as default Cancel Select the default directory where the indexed files typically reside Define the default extension to be used for indexed filenames The vox extension i
74. can also be activated by clicking on in the toolbar section Tape loader options 5 5 4 Tape Loader options This is where you set the operating parameters for the Tape Loader Tape loader parameters m Prompt format Prompt separation Sound family Windows wave When recording prompts will be separated by Sound type 16 bits linear Hitting the spacebar Esc or Stop ends recording Sampling frequency Detecting a silence longer than 2 000 sec 441 00 Hz y and a silence longer than 10 000 sec will end recording don standard sample rate m Prompt folder 5 00 ZAMS Sound levels below 26 02 dB will be regarded as silence Save prompt files to je Woxtudio wWAVFILES 26 02 dBW r Prompt filenames Read the filenames from a script file Generate the filenames from a template Help OK Cancel Select the filenames under which the recorded messages will be saved You can browse to an existing script file in which case the filenames are taken from the script file itself If you don t enter a save to path in the tape loader defaults then the complete path without extension though it is always wav has to be entered in the script file itself If a save to directory is entered in the loader defaults only a filename without extension should be entered in the script file Alternatively you can have Vox Studio generate the filenames automat
75. cense agreement Licenses and Keys cannot be returned and you remain responsible for their correct usage In case of doubt click lt Cancel gt now License ID JOHNDOE654321 License Key cr aaa Unregister Cancel Please enter the complete information in all fields If you are using Vox Studio in demo mode and have not purchased a license leave the License ID and License Key fields as they are and Vox Studio will run in evaluation mode If you purchased a license enter your personal licensing information in those fields Please make certain that you copy the personal ID and Key information exactly Respect capitalization and make sure you do not substitute O upper case oh for 0 zero or 1 one and upper case i for lower case L If you can copy and paste this licensing information into the fields from a pure text file Do not paste this from a word processor as you are likely to introduce invisible formatting characters in doing so 5 9 4 Print the license Prints a dated registration card you can use whenever you need to contact us for support or upgrades Fax this document with your request If you purchased from us directly fax it or mail it to Xentec at 32 2 757 0777 If not send it to your local reseller 5 9 5 Support e The Support command pops up a box that gives you the coordinates of Xentec the company which developed Vox Studio and those of your local reseller if applicable Copyright Xentec nv
76. cords the prompts The prompts are automatically digitized and saved one by one as wav files under filenames you have predefined in the script file 3 3 Tape Loader functionality The tape loader can automatically digitize a prerecorded studio tape Connect the output of your tape player to the input of your sound card and start the tape loader in Vox Studio It will automatically detect where to cut your prompts and will save them all under filenames which you define in a script It can also work without a script and generate filenames automatically for you Go for a pizza and your digitized files will be waiting for you when you come back The tape loader can even be used as an accelerated voice operated prompter as it recognizes silences between spoken messages It will display the text of the next message on screen as soon as it detects the end of the previous one All you have to do is read the messages into a microphone 3 4 File Slicer functionality The file slicer can automatically slice a long prerecorded wav file into individual prompt files It will Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 11 Vox Studio 3 User Guide automatically detect where to cut your prompts it looks for silences and save all the prompts under filenames which you define in a script It can even work without a script and generate filenames automatically for you If your professional recording studio delivers all your prompts stuffed into one large wav
77. course this is overkill for most standard telephony applications Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 111 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Vox Studio uses a high resolution linear representation of signals internally to ensure the best possible conversion and filtering results This is transparent to you the user but should indicate how much care is taken of your precious sound samples when we compress compand translate and otherwise massage them The more bits that are utilized the more accurate the signal representation will be 8 bit PCM represents signals digitized into 256 discrete levels 16 bit PCM represents signals digitized into 65 536 discrete levels The higher the resolution the more hi fi your reproduced sound gets Also the more samples that are taken per second the better the reproduced sound gets Obviously 16 bit linear PCM sampled at 48 KHz represents a data stream of 768 600 bps 32 times more than 6 KHz ADPCM at 4 bits Be careful when you select extreme resolutions you may fill your hard disk much faster than you expect We strongly advise against the use of 8 bit resolution master recordings even for telephony unless absolutely required Use 16 bit resolution wherever possible 6 2 20 Rockwell formats The Rockwell formats supported by Vox Studio are the ADPCM coding formats understood by the voice enabled Rockwell modem chips Many voice data fax modems on the market use the Rockwell chip set If your applicat
78. ctivated by default when initiating the Transform Active and Convert Active commands You can also select the default Clarity Filter and Boost options here Usually a weak clarity filter and no boost is the best choice Low and high pass filter if this is selected here then the low or high pass filter options will be activated by default when initiating the Transform Active and Convert Active commands For the high pass and low pass filters the 3 dB cut off frequencies can be chosen with a 1 Hz resolution Remember that according to the Nyquist theorem the highest frequency component in any sampled file cannot exceed 1 2 the frequency at which the file is sampled You do not need to activate this option for sample rate conversions because Vox Studio does all the necessary associated filtering automatically DTMF filter if this is selected here then the DTMF filter option will be activated by default when initiating the Transform Active and Convert Active commands The DTMF filter has 3 strengths you can choose from weak attenuates 10 dB medium attenuates 20 dB and strong attenuates 30 dB Use the weakest filter that solves your talk off problems Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 84 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 7 13 6 Batch Conversion defaults Batch conversion defaults m Convert from r Convert to Sound family Sound family Windows Wave y Nortel y Sound type Sound type will be read from fi
79. ctory free space in temporary directory e List of other programs active while you run Vox Studio e Sound card type if used and sound driver selected in the Vox Studio tools menu If applicable have a sample sound file or script file ready 8 3 Functional demo A free functional demo version of Vox Studio is available directly from Xentec from our distributors and from various download sites lt is readily downloadable from the Internet at http www xentec be This demo version is fully functional but limits the length of manipulated sound files to 5 seconds and limits the number of files handled by one single batch command to 5 Other than that the demo version is a perfect vehicle to test the capabilities and the conversion quality of Vox Studio lt is also a convincing selling tool for resellers 8 4 Copyright Vox Studio by Xentec is a Copyright of Xentec nv sa 2001 All rights reserved Xentec nv sa De Helftwinning 2 3070 Kortenberg Belgium Tel 32 2 757 0666 Fax32 2 757 0777 Email salesOxentec be Web http www xentec be Warning This program and the program documentation which constitutes an integral part of it are protected by copyright law and international treaties Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this product or any portion of it may result in severe civil and criminal penalties and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under the law Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001
80. d Tape Loader windows e Other keyboard shortcuts All menu commands and dialog box selections that have an underlined character in the command text can be controlled by issuing an Alt UnderlinedCharacter keyboard command For instance to activate the Edit menu you would press Alt e on the keyboard Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 102 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 6 File Formats This chapter describes the file formats for the script file used by the Prompter Tape Loader File Slicer Group Ungroup commands and also the telephony file formats currently supported in Vox Studio Script File Format Sound File Formats 6 1 Script File Format A script file is used by the prompter by the tape loader and by the indexed file creation modules of Vox Studio To make things simpler the script file format is suitable for all these operations The same script file can be used to record files with the prompter and to later group the files into multi prompt indexed files Also the script format is such that any text editor is able to create a usable script file A demo script file prompts txt comes with your Vox Studio CD Rom There is a slight difference in the script file formats for Dialogic or for NMS indexed files But the structure of the script files is similar enough that one can de index one file format and use the same script file to re index into the other file format Script files for Dialogic indexed files A script file is
81. d back to the specific telephony card you use Once that is set your settings should usually never change unless you change the target telephony system Remember that the Normalize option is there to correct minor variations between recordings it is not there to correct grossly clipped or grossly under recorded signals You should regularly check if you use nearly the full dynamic range you have available by looking at your recorded messages in the graphical display window Note when Normalize is selected a Center function is in fact performed automatically on the signal prior to amplitude normalization Finally although this functionality is described elsewhere in the chapter describing the calibration tool remember that Vox Studio s dBV or dBm display can be calibrated so that the dB levels you see on screen actually match the dB levels that the same signal will generate on the target telephone line Center around zero automatically re centers the sound file around the zero baseline to eliminate DC offsets caused by your sound card and possibly by very low frequency interference Note when a Normalize command is issued a Center command is in fact performed automatically on the file prior to amplitude normalization Depending on the quality of your sound card and your recording setup it may also be very advantageous to perform a centering operation before doing leader trailer work which requires rather precise threshold detection Vox S
82. d find it to be of impeccable quality let us know Good multimedia cards are sold with decent accompanying software Look for a quality mixer level adjustment applet you need one to adjust the input levels under Windows Vox Studio does not provide such a tool it comes standard with sound cards 7 2 Mixer editor and volume applets Vox Studio does not provide a mixer sound level adjustor for your multimedia sound card These software applets always come with the sound card itself and they get installed in Windows when you install the drivers for your card When installed they typically look like this in the System Tray on the Taskbar g Mixers and volume control applets are often card hardware specific The philosophy behind Vox Studio is to be card independent Use the specialized mixer applets that come with your card 7 3 Clean recordings to start To obtain high quality prompts make sure you start with a spotless master recording Here are a few common sense guidelines that will make it easier to obtain good quality masters Only spotless recordings convert well and make good prompts Many ingredients influence the quality of a recording the microphone the room s acoustical characteristics and the position of the microphone with respect to the room and the speaker all play a very important role Use a hyper directional microphone to avoid recording surrounding noises PC fan noise for instance and room echo Do this even if
83. d to a License ID which identifies you uniquely Every License ID is tracked You are therefore responsible for ensuring correct usage of this program according to the terms of the license agreement Licenses and Keys cannot be returned and you remain responsible for their correct usage In case of doubt click lt Cancel gt now License ID JOHNDOE654321 License Key cr aaa Unregister Cancel Please enter the complete information in all fields If you are using Vox Studio in demo mode and have not purchased a license leave the License ID and License Key fields as they are and Vox Studio will run in evaluation mode If you purchased a license enter your personal licensing information in those fields Please make certain that you copy the personal ID and Key information exactly Take care with capitalization and make sure you do not substitute O upper case oh for 0 zero or 1 one and upper case i for lower case L If you can copy and paste this licensing information into the fields from a pure text file Do not paste this from a word processor as you are likely to introduce invisible formatting characters in doing so 4 1 5 Print and return registration info You can print a dated copy of your registration and serialization information from the Help menu This contains all the information you may need to obtain technical support on the product or enquire about an upgrade Demo mode users can fax us their registration
84. e One of them will hold Vox Studio and associated program files You select this location at installation time e The second could be the default directory to hold the multimedia source files in wav format for example e The third could be the default directory to hold the target telephony files often but not always with a vox extension 4 1 3 Set program defaults You can set all Vox Studio defaults from the Tools Defaults menu Please read the next sentence very carefully At the very least you should set the default folders file extensions and sound devices or Vox Studio will not work satisfactorily Once you get used to working with Vox Studio you should set all the other defaults too If you set appropriate defaults in the Tools Defaults menu you will greatly reduce the amount of repetitive manual intervention required in your daily work The Tools Defaults menu 4 1 4 Entering your license information The first time Vox Studio is run it will open this type of dialog box Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 18 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Vox Studio registration Please fill in all identification fields below Name JohnDoe ss ss sSSSSSSSSS Company kenteen sss Street De Helftwinnina 2 Ciy Koter State Brabant sss SSSSS Zip code ES Country Belgium Phone 32 2 757 0666 Fax 3227570777 To register fill in the License ID and associated License Key below Registered copies of Yox Studio are linke
85. e dialog box allows you to select the maximum sound energy desired This volume selection can be done in of the maximum on screen amplitude in dB or in dBm dBV The current file will be scanned for maximum sound energy levels and the whole file will be multiplied by a factor that will bring the maximum sound energy to the desired level Vox Studio does not measure peak AMPLITUDE it measures peak ENERGY over a duration of several milliseconds about the duration of a spoken syllable Vox Studio levels are internally calibrated for steady pure sine waves at 800Hz This may confuse you in the beginning as the best setting in Vox Studio usually is a choice of about 65 of maximum energy not 100 That s simply because human voice is neither steady nor a pure sine wave On a pure steady sine wave a Vox Studio normalization to 100 will produce a signal that just reaches the floor and the ceiling of the display As a result if you have recorded speech and you select a maximum average level of energy of say 70 in the Normalize command you can get sound spikes whose amplitude will very briefly be clipped at 100 For voice recordings this happens on very short sounds like T P and K which are explosive sounds anyway and where amplitude saturation does not matter very much This technique allows recording at as high a level as possible with best possible telephony quality A similar technique is used when recording with a recording device that has a reco
86. e file to remove the components above 1 2 the sampling frequency before doing the re sampling Naturally when a file is up sampled re sampled at a higher sampling rate there is no way Vox Studio can add frequency components that are not present in the file or have been removed by previous down sampling In other words down sampling will necessarily result in a file with a lower bandwidth but up sampling will not increase the file s frequency content Thus when you do a down sampling followed by a reverse up sampling the resulting file will not be the original If that is the intent you should reload the original file from disk instead Downsampling irremediably deteriorates a file and should always be the last thing you do to a file You can select any of the standard telephony or multimedia sample rates from a list but you can also input a custom non standard sample rate if you need to Trim leaders and trailers allows easy production of prompt files with uniform leading and trailing blanks What used to be a time consuming manual editing task has now become as easy as selecting a button with your mouse The rest is done for you automatically Automatic silence adjustment is a threshold activated process and thus requires spotless clean recordings If you have background noise in your recordings Vox Studio may incorrectly detect the beginning and end of sound in your file Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 49 Vox Studio 3
87. e longissime absunt minimeque ad eos mercatores saepe commeant atque ea quae ad effeminandos animos pertinent important proximique sunt Germanis qui trans Rhenum incolunt quibuscum continenter bellum gerunt Recorra a EA fiecod_ CE Heo A AT a pein Nex Cert The prompter works with a prompt script file The script file contains the prompt text the names of the files to save the prompts in and a short description for each prompt You can read and record the prompts one by one from the prompter screen simply by tapping the space bar The space bar initiates and stops each recording The Left and Right arrow keys allow navigation from prompt to prompt while the Up and Down or Page Up and Page Down keys allow scrolling through a long prompt that does not fit on a single screen Prompts can be rerecorded easily The prompter flashes the script s messages on screen in a large typeface This enables the speaker voice talent to read them one by one into the microphone and save them automatically under the file names previously defined in the script file This is a real time saver Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 43 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Recorded messages can be played back immediately for verification from within the prompter before proceeding to the next prompt The script file format is described in detail elsewhere The format of the prompt script file is the same as the format used by the Group and Ungroup
88. e modulation Digital encoding method for sampled voice signals Pentium A CPU chip used in PCs Pentium is a trademark of Intel Corporation Philips Dutch Electronics giant The Business Communication Systems Division also supplies Computer Telephony systems Phone banking Dial a number find out you are broke One of the applications for Host Interactive Voice Response HIVR Similar to IVR but involves communication and exchange of data with a host mainframe RAM Random access memory The data your PC manipulates is retrieved from and stored in RAM Your PC uses RAM chips Resolution The resolution of a recording is indicated by the number of bits used to represent sample values A 16 bit resolution gives a precision of about 0 003 of full scale An 8 bit resolution gives a precision of only about 0 8 of full scale value Use 16 bits if file size and conversion time is not a problem Rockwell US provider amongst other things of silicon chips for modem and voice applications Sample rate The frequency at which samples of sound are taken Sampling rate The frequency at which samples of sound are taken SCII Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 131 Vox Studio 3 User Guide French provider of components and tools to assemble computer telephony systems Signal to noise ratio The ratio of the voice signal amplitude to the noise amplitude usually expressed in dB SoundBlaster A Multimedia sound card SoundBlaster is a
89. e quality poor 8 000 Hz Telephone quality ok to good 8 117 Hz Telephone quality ok to good 11 025 Hz AM radio quality 22 050 Hz FM radio quality 44 100 Hz CD quality if 16 bits 48 000 Hz CD quality if 16 bits Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 113 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 7 Tips and Techniques This chapter gives useful recording and conversion tips Please read this chapter before spending a lot of money on equipment Sound card quality Mixer volume and editor applets Clean recordings to start with Conversion and sound quality Sampling frequencies of older cards My files do not sound right Sample file 7 1 Sound card quality Although sound card bargains certainly exist our experience shows that the sound cards that consistently give good or excellent results are not the rock bottom priced unlabeled types Which multimedia sound card you buy and how much you spend is up to you If all you want to do is conversions you do not even need a sound card You need to be warned there are substantial differences in quality between the various sound cards available on the market today We have yet to see a very cheap card that sounds great and has low noise but we certainly have seen some very expensive junk The most important aspects are e Some multimedia sound cards work very well but only when recording or playing back at the standard multimedia sample rates of 11 22 and 44 KHz If you also want to play back tele
90. eaker in the recording room The distance between the speaker and the microphone influences the spatial impression because you change the ratio between direct sound and reverberated sound The closer the speaker is to the microphone the closer he will sound but his voice will also seem warmer because low frequency content will increase The further the speaker is from the microphone the more spacy and distant he will sound and the more you will hear room echoes The above is also a function of the directionality of the microphone therefore trial and error recordings are needed to determine the optimal position of the speaker with respect to the microphone For speech the speaker at arm s length distance from the microphone is usually about right for a neutral impression In any event keep the microphone far enough from the speaker s lips to minimize plops and breathing sounds If your microphone rests on a table try and minimize the interference between direct sound and sound reflected by the table surface by placing the microphone as close to the table surface as possible Another way of avoiding this is to use a highly directional microphone again Another very important factor is the quality of the voice itself Use experienced speakers with a clear pronunciation and telephone friendly voice A voice that sounds great on radio or TV may not sound all that great over the telephone system Perform preliminary tests Some speakers have a propensity t
91. ecorded studio tape detect silences between successive prompts decide where to cut and then save each prompt under a preassigned file name The File Slicer will take a large existing wav file as input detect the silences between successive prompts and then decide where to cut and save under a preassigned file name e Vox Studio can generate files containing DTMF tone sequences or can insert DTMF tones into existing files It can also detect and remove DTMF tones from sound files Special tools are available for high pass and low pass filtering DTMF filtering DC offset removal silence trimming and volume normalization e The above functions can be performed in automated batch mode so that you can produce thousands of files very rapidly e Vox Studio has drag and drop capability You can select multiple telephony or multimedia files from within another program and drop them onto Vox Studio with your mouse This will load or play the files you selected All file formats supported by Vox Studio can be handled like this e Vox Studio also offers a command line interface and a DLL that allow programmers to utilize the Vox Studio voice file formatting coding and compression conversion capabilities from within their own applications Detailed command line and DLL reference information for programmers is available in the on disk documentation or can be obtained from Xentec To find out more about what Vox Studio can do browse through the
92. ectly supported on most Windows implementations as a native format Although the quality of IMA ADPCM voice files is not great the files are portable There is a real advantage in having compact files that can be played on most Windows PCs Windows supports Microsoft ADPCM wav files at sample rates between 8 and 41KHz Vox Studio supports IMA ADPCM wav files at sample rates from 6KHz to 64KHz 6 2 12 Natural Microsystems formats Vox Studio supports 2 companding and 3 compression formats used by NMS Natural MicroSystems cards see below Stand alone NMS files usually carry the vce extension while indexed files usually Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 109 Vox Studio 3 User Guide carry the vox extension Vox files usually but not always contain multiple prompts NMS vox files that contain only a single prompt are called single prompt vox files in Vox Studio Both vce and vox files have a file header Vox Studio converts to and from NMS vce files or to and from NMS single prompt vox files Vox Studio has a separate command to group prompt files into indexed vox files or ungroup vox indexed files to stand alone files To summarize NMS vce files are non indexed files and contain a single voice prompt NMS vox files are indexed files and can contain either multiple voice prompts or a single prompt Vox Studio converts directly from other single prompt formats wav for instance to vce files or t
93. en playing a whole bunch of files later You can also select here whether the default will include playing only the beginning of files and how many seconds should be played Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 82 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 7 13 5 Convert Transform Active defaults Convert Transform active defaults e000 Hz y MV Resample prompts to Non standard semple rater 5 00 ZRMS leader 300 msec IV Trim leaders and trailers under 26 02 dB to 20 02 BV trailer 300 msec 65 00 ZRMS V Normalize sound volume to 3 74 dB Center sound around 0 3 74 dBV C No No M Apply an intelligibility filter with Weak clarity and C Weak boost C Strong C Strong IV Lowpassfilterat 3000 Hz Weak A Apply a C Medium DTMF filter High pass filter at 0 Hz C Strong Help Save as defauts Cancel This is where you set the default values to be used in the Transform Active and Convert Active commands The available default settings are e Resample prompt set the default to modify the sample rate of the file i e the number of signal measurements performed per second The Nyquist theorem states that the highest frequency component in any sound file cannot exceed 1 2 the frequency at which the file is sampled remember that when you set your defaults You can select any of the standard telephony or multimedia sample rates from a list b
94. er segment of sound or until the program is closed The Paste command can also be activated by clicking on in the toolbar section You can also use the Ctrl V keyboard shortcut to paste 5 3 5 Delete This command deletes a selected segment of sound from the active window If nothing is selected in the active window nothing will be deleted The deleted segment of sound is discarded and is not placed on the clipboard Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 39 Vox Studio 3 User Guide The Delete command can also be activated by clicking on x in the toolbar section 5 3 6 Select All This selects the complete sound file in the active window You can then delete it cut it or paste something else in its place 5 4 View menu This menu is used to select what part of a sound file is viewed on screen and how much detail you want to see Window Limits Zoom In Zoom Out Zoom All Scroll Scroll Left Scroll Right Previous View Next View 5 4 1 Window Limits This command opens the following window Starting point Milliseconds 220 Ending point Miliseconds 9040 Cancel The command is equivalent to the manual interactive Zoom In or Zoom Out commands but allows very precise entry of the beginning and end point of the zoomed in waveform displayed on screen If the current graph display mode is in time units then milliseconds will be shown for the starting point and ending point If t
95. erform a Center or a Normalize operation on your file before you apply the Leader Trailer command This has the effect of flattening the low frequency or DC signal background on the zero line and pumping up the signal which makes it so much easier to perform a good threshold detection on your file Normalize sound volume allows easy and rapid production of prompt files with equal and for most telephony applications preferably reasonably high sound volume levels The dialog box allows you to select the maximum sound energy desired This volume selection can be done in of the maximum on screen amplitude in dB or in dBm dBV The current file will be scanned for maximum sound energy levels and the whole file will be multiplied by a factor that will bring the maximum sound energy to the desired level Vox Studio does not measure peak AMPLITUDE it measures peak ENERGY over a duration of several milliseconds about the duration of a spoken syllable Vox Studio levels are internally calibrated for steady pure sine waves at 800Hz This may confuse you in the beginning as the best setting in Vox Studio usually is a choice of about 65 of maximum energy not 100 That s simply because human voice is neither steady nor a pure sine wave On a pure steady sine wave a Vox Studio normalization to 100 will produce a signal that just reaches the floor and the ceiling of the display As a result if you have recorded speech and you select a maximum aver
96. f Sound card 114 Quality recordingS oooconnnccnnnnnoncccnnncncon 115 Quit VOX StUdilO oocooooooocccnnccccnnconanncnonononnnnnos 38 RAM requirements 22 Raw PCM forMatS ccccccnnccccccccncncnnnnnnnnnnnnnos 111 Reading sound files ceeeeeesseeeeeees 33 Record command 2 cceeceeeeeeeeeeneeeaees 72 Recorder buttons cccseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 100 Recording a new sound file 72 Recording files 11 Recording functionality 11 Recording room requirements 006 24 Recording sound device ccccccncccnnnnnnnnnnnos 94 Recording pS aeii tia 115 Page 134 Registered trademarks ccccccccnnnnnnnnnnno 123 Registering the liCenSe o ooonnnnnnnonccnnnnoss 97 Registering with license key 18 Registrations eaan 121 Registration Card ooooonccnnnnicocccccnnnconannncnnnnos 98 Removing DTMF like soundS 16 Removing the program from disk 20 Removing unwanted frequencies 15 Return to previ0US VIEW cccccccnccnnnnnnnnnnnnos 42 RIFF TICS iaa ra 113 Right click contextual menu cccccccccnnnnno 101 Rockwell Formals nnion 112 Sample NCS vice2 ian aeee kaia 120 Sample rate conversion cccceeeeeeeeeeeeees 52 Sampling frequencies old cards 119 Save alla AE 35 Save alles ditad 36 Save under a different name or format 35 SOTO
97. fault in the conversion dialog boxes Disable it here if you usually will not use this feature e Intelligibility filter if this is selected here then the Intelligibility Filter option will be activated by default when initiating the Transform Active and Convert Active commands You can also select the default Clarity Filter and Boost options here Usually a weak clarity filter and no boost is the best choice e Low and high pass filter if this is selected here then the low or high pass filter options will be activated by default when initiating the Transform Active and Convert Active commands For the high pass and low pass filters the 3 dB cutoff frequencies can be chosen with a 1 Hz resolution Remember that according to the Nyquist theorem the highest frequency component in any sampled file cannot exceed 1 2 the frequency at which the file is sampled You do not need to activate this option for sample rate conversions because Vox Studio does all the necessary associated filtering automatically DTMF filter if this is selected here then the DTMF filter option will be activated by default when initiating the Transform Active and Convert Active commands The DTMF filter has 3 strengths you can choose from weak attenuates 10 dB medium attenuates 20 dB and strong attenuates 30 dB Use the weakest filter that solves your talk off problems Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 86 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 7 13 7 Prompter
98. g technique that allows representation of analog signals with less digital information than pure analog to digital conversion dB Decibel Logarithmic representation of the amplitude of a signal One decibel is the smallest change in sound volume that the human ear can distinguish DC Direct current Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 129 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Decibel dB Logarithmic representation of the amplitude of a signal One decibel is about the smallest change in sound volume that the human ear can distinguish Dialogic US provider of components and tools to assemble computer telephony systems Distortion Any spurious modification to a sound caused by the process that manipulates it or its digitized representation DTMF Dual tone multi frequency also called Touch tone by AT amp T 16 combinations of voice band tones are used to generate dialing signals The digits represented are 0 9 and A D A D are not available on standard telephones Elan Informatique French provider of components and tools to assemble computer telephony systems filter Manipulation that alters the spectral frequency components of a signal filtering Process that alters the spectral frequency components of a signal FM Frequency modulation The encoding of information by varying a carrier signal s frequency FPU Floating point unit This arithmetic chip assists the CPU in doing fast calculations Frequency The rate
99. ght Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 21 Vox Studio 3 User Guide these decompression computations will take more time on that PC The machine needs to stop playing sound to allow your CPU to catch up with its number crunching The more complex the compression algorithm the more likely this is to happen In summary speed is critical only if you want real time playback of compressed files or complicated recording operations not for conversion As the computational speed of PC increases with each PC generation this becomes less and less of an issue 4 3 3 Memory Vox Studio does not rely exclusively on available memory If it did it would be impossible to manipulate very large voice files like for instance 30 minute recordings Vox Studio uses your hard disk and temporary files as a scratchpad area This is invisible to the user except for the obvious disk space requirement Still for Windows to run comfortably without too much disk swapping we recommend a minimum of 32 Mbytes of RAM and 64 Mbytes or more would be a better idea You can get it to run with less but you will not be very happy with less This is really a Windows performance requirement not a specific Vox Studio need 4 3 4 Display Vox Studio version 3 requires at least a 800 x 600 display setting with a minimum of 256 colors The program screens are designed for use with the standard small character fonts We do not guarantee full functionality with odd display config
100. h both your card vendor and the vendor of your application software platform 7 6 My files do not sound right When a user reports that his files do not sound right in his application he usually experiences one of the following phenomena e The file plays in the telephony system and has recognizable human speech but plays too fast and at too high a pitch This means the correct coding algorithm was selected to play the file but the wrong sample frequency Select a lower sample rate when playing back on the telephony system or if that is not possible a higher sample rate when recording with Vox Studio The file plays in the telephony system and has recognizable human speech but plays too slow and at too low a pitch This means the correct coding algorithm was selected to play the file but the wrong sample frequency Select a higher sample rate when playing back on the telephony system or if that is not possible a lower sample rate when recording with Vox Studio In some rare instances we have found that the hardware was in fact the culprit We have seen a sound card that had a playback frequency 9 off the one we had programmed at low frequencies As a result files recorded at a higher sample rate and then converted sounded off pitch when played back at 6 or at 7 2 KHz e The converted voice files sound muffled and seem to lack clarity This is usually the result of a drastic reduction in sample rate that results in a perceived increase in
101. he current graph display mode is in sample units then the first and last sample numbers will be shown Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 40 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 4 2 Zoom In A new cursor with a magnifying glass and a sign appears You can now interactively select the portion of the sound file you want to see on screen The zoom in factor is defined like this The area selected by the magnifying glass cursor will be displayed in the entire graphical window The Zoom In command can also be activated by clicking on Q in the toolbar section 5 4 3 Zoom Out A new cursor with a magnifying glass and a sign appears You can now interactively select the portion of the sound file you want to see on screen The zoom out factor is defined like this The entire graphical window will be displayed in the area selected by the magnifying glass cursor The Zoom Out command can also be activated by clicking on Q in the toolbar section 5 4 4 Zoom All This restores the display so that it shows the complete waveform in the graphical window no zooming The Zoom All command can also be activated by clicking on gt in the toolbar section 5 4 5 Scroll This only makes sense if the file has been zoomed A new cursor with a hand appears You can now drag left or right to interactively slide to the portion of the sound file you want to see on screen A position bar at the top of the graphical window shows the relative positio
102. he problems good old DOS had when too many files were opened simultaneously by a running application The Dialogic ADPCM wav format uses the same coding as normal Dialogic files it can contain sound coded in A law Mu law or ADPCM but it has a RIFF standard file header instead of just raw data One more sample frequency is provided 11 025 KHz A law and A law Wav The European digital telephone network uses a companding algorithm operating on a segmented straight lines approximation to a logarithmic curve called the A law digital coding standard The A law companders produce 8 bits of companded data per 16 bit sample at a sample rate of 8 KHz This is also called 64 KBps A law PCM This is the coding algorithm used by PTTs Telephone Companies throughout Europe In the USA a similar algorithm called Mu law is used Telephony cards capable of recording and playing 64 KBps data produce very good quality voice In fact you cannot get any better on the current analog telephone network Of course 64 KBps PCM data requires more hard disk space than 24 KBps or 32 KBps ADPCM data but the voice quality is better A law companding produces a better signal to noise ratio at low voice amplitudes than Mu law but Mu law has a lower idle channel noise Although the normal sample rate for A law telephony is 8 KHz most Dialogic cards allow using A law at 6KHz as well and Vox Studio supports this The Dialogic A law wav format uses the same coding a
103. he threshold level Vox Studio is going to use to detect the difference between silence and speech or speech and silence You can use a setting in Y RMS or in decibels Finally select the disk directory where the new files will be stored The File Slicer command can also be activated by clicking on a in the toolbar section 5 6 Convert menu The conversion tools are all found here Convert Active allows in memory manual conversion of a currently loaded and active file Convert Current allows manual conversion of a currently loaded file and it also saves the file to disk Batch Conversion as the name implies allows automated conversion of a whole bunch of files The remaining commands allow concatenation of single prompts to grouped indexed files or extraction of indexed files into their separate components Grouped indexed files contain many prompts and are very useful because the operating system under which the voice application runs does not have to keep hundreds of files open at any time For instance it would make sense to keep recordings for all the numbers from 1 to 99 into one and the same indexed file Similarly all error messages could be kept in one larger indexed file too Transform Active Convert Active Batch Convert Group to indexed Dialogic Ungroup from indexed Dialogic Group to indexed NMS Ungroup from indexed NMS 5 6 1 Transform Active The transform active command modifies the active file currently in
104. header identifying the coding format resolution and sample rate Wave files usually have a wav extension Windows Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 132 10 Index About Vox Studio in Help Menu 22 99 Adjusting leaders and trailers 14 AOVICO ara ATAA be temebbccbhcatenebeee sien 114 Amplitude normalization functionality 14 Apple fileS ooooooonnnnnniniccccnonnnnccccccccnccinnnos 112 Aspect Generations forMalS oooomninnnncnnnn 113 Automatic recording 11 Background conversion s es 55 Baseline correction ooooonooooococcoccoonnnnnnnnnnnnos 14 Basic introduction oooooonnccnnnccccccccnnnnconannnnn noo 7 Batch Conversion command ccccccccccnnnnnnnnooo 55 Batch Conversion defaults ooococicinnnnco 85 Bicom fOrMatd oooccocconccnnonnnnnnnnnnnononnnnnnnnnnnnns 105 Blank triMdMiNQ ooonnnnncnnnnnnnnnncccccccnnnanannnnnnnno 14 Bulk conversion oooooococccccocnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnononnnnns 55 Buttons on the to0lbarS oooonicoccccnnnnicnncccnnco 99 Buttons to record and play ooooiccccccnnnncicnnn 100 Calibrate in dB dBm dBV ceeees 92 Capabilities of the program 10 Cascade the graphs 95 CCITT ITU formats o 105 Center functionality oooooonnnnnnnninnnccnnnnccncnnno 14 Centigram formats cccccceceeeccsteeeeeees 106 Clean recordings to Stalin 115 Closed lO iii 35 Glose a
105. highly time consuming task automated by Vox Studio is the cleaning up or trimming of recorded prompts Vox Studio can add or remove silence at the beginning and at the end of voice files Vox Studio does this automatically for you and intelligently adjusts the length of silence to your system requirements There are a lots of other features built right into Vox Studio like the reduction of talk off through DTMF detection and DTMF filtering automatic power level normalization of all files for maximum intelligibility and more Voice processing professionals love to have these capabilities grouped into one easy to use and very efficient tool Vox Studio 3 is a user friendly 32 bit Windows application It is compatible with Windows 95 Windows 98 Windows Me Windows NT4 and Windows 2000 A sound card is required if files are to be recorded or played No sound card is necessary if Vox Studio is exclusively used to convert one file Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 7 Vox Studio 3 User Guide format to another or to do filtering or trimming operations Vox Studio is targeted at telephony application developers and their customers It is also very useful for voice system administrators who need to do regular voice file maintenance The conversion functions in Vox Studio enable professional recording studios to deliver voice files to their telephony customers even if they know little about the specifics of telephony Vox Studio is norma
106. ically The computed filenames will consist of a fixed radix root and a variable incremented digital tail suffix The counting can be decimal or hexadecimal as preferred If you don t know what hexadecimal notation is just select decimal For example if the starting filename template s radix is ivrsys and the trailing counter is 00 then filenames from ivrsys00 wav to ivrsys99 wav can be generated If the starting radix is ivr and the trailing number is 1087 then filenames from ivr1087 wav to ivr9999 wav will be generated If you have selected to automatically generate filenames then the default filename prefix and suffix will be proposed at the top of the window and you can modify it there if you want The next step is to decide how the tape loader is going to detect the separation between recorded Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 46 Vox Studio 3 User Guide messages You can make it simple for Vox Studio and tap the space bar yourself whenever you recognize the end of a prompt Alternatively you can have Vox Studio do this for you by detecting a predefined and settable number of seconds of silence It would be a good idea to have 3 to 5 seconds of silence as a delimiter on your tape recordings Of course you will have to direct the recording studio to do that for you You can also select what length of silence represents the end of all tape recordings This should be much longer than the longest separation on the tape Finally
107. icense Registration Print the license Support Xentec on the web About Vox Studio 5 9 1 Contents Opens the Vox Studio help file at the very first topic From there you can navigate using hypertext jumps browse with the left and right arrow buttons in the help tool bar or search for a particular help topic You will find hypertext jumps to help topics as well as a glossary of voice processing computer telephony terms at the back of the documentation 5 9 2 Search The Search command in the Help menu allows you to look for help on specific topics by entering a keyword and searching for all help topics that relate to that keyword This command opens the help file and activates the Search feature 5 9 3 License Registration The first time Vox Studio is run it will open this type of dialog box Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 97 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Vox Studio registration Please fill in all identification fields below Name JohnDoe ss ss sSSSSSSSSS Company kenteen sss Street De Helftwinnina 2 Ciy Koter State Brabant sss SSSSS Zip code ES Country Belgium Phone 32 2 757 0666 Fax 3227570777 To register fill in the License ID and associated License Key below Registered copies of Yox Studio are linked to a License ID which identifies you uniquely Every License ID is tracked You are therefore responsible for ensuring correct usage of this program according to the terms of the li
108. icons as there are messages in the indexed file When you click a message icon you see it in the graph panel and can edit it there This is a very useful productivity feature Vox Studio also offers the ability to group several individual messages into a single indexed file or to ungroup an indexed file into its separate components Grouping Any number of individual stand alone prompt files can be converted into one single larger indexed file A script file directs this automated procedure The prompter script file and the group and ungroup script files are all compatible with one another Ungrouping Indexed files can be expanded into their individual components A script file can optionally be produced This script file is then compatible with the prompter script file and the group script file described above It is thus possible to ungroup then regroup an indexed file without having to create a script file first Thanks to this script file technique it is possible to rapidly record individual prompts with the prompter Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 13 Vox Studio 3 User Guide group them into an indexed file ungroup the files rerecord one of the prompts then regroup it all to an indexed file etc Vox Studio currently supports loading editing grouping and ungrouping for native Dialogic vap and NMS vox indexed files You could even ungroup a file in one indexed format into its separate components do a format convers
109. id Play All B t Selection ii eetetydetede aaaea aaa aa eaa aa aA eats 71 EE R e E E E E E E T A T 72 SPT e Eo o PA E ET 72 5 7 10 O 72 5 7 11 Playa list of MOS wii een aia Annee ia ais 73 5 7 12 OPINAS lana ena etn ae Gene aes 75 5 7 13 Delate MON MA AA 78 5 7 14 SOUNA DEVICES AA AAA AAA dd 94 5 8 WWINCOW Meta A Aaa 95 A o TN 95 5 82 Tile Horizontally ccoo S 96 5 8377 Tile Vertically nrerin nanan nite nannnl daa 96 5 9 Help men haea aren ea 97 DINA COMEN Sii AAA an Ran ne Ra eas 97 Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 3 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 59 25 E O 97 5 9 3 License Registration iiem aia 97 5 9 4 Print the lICONSe innnan e aan A Ea e N a aea a a 98 5 9 5 O EE T 98 5 9 6 About VOX Studioi iia aa A aaa 99 5 10 Toolbars buttons keyboard and MOUSE occccccnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnncnnnnnnnss 99 5 10 1 TOO buttons ai ii T A 99 5 10 2 Player Recorder BU ONS ooooocccconccocononcccccccnnonanonnonnnccnnnnconnnnn cnn cnc nana r rca cnn anna 100 5 10 3 Right click contextual MeNU ooocoocccccconocoooncnnnnnonanoncnnnnnnnncnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn rra anna cnn nnnnnnncnnnnnes 101 5 10 4 Keyboard Shortcuts sje itn 101 6 File FOME 103 0 Script File Format neisime a a EAEN Oe 103 6 2 SOUNG FIlG FORMALS 2 teiecccectetseeatcceccee cathe retail cul aaa aaa aaaea 104 6 2 12 BICOMMORM Abt a aed saad cteeeeehsn las ceceatebe aa a danced tela cases abe a a A A aeaa 105 622 IWOOT
110. ificant offset If you see only one line the offset generated is small enough that you can disregard it If you see green rubbish grass on the base line your recording setup picks up unwanted noise which you will certainly hear in the final recording If you manipulate files that were recorded on another workstation it is a good idea to load the files first and visually check them for a possible DC shift DC offsets are very disturbing whenever you need to amplify a signal or do threshold detection Also too much DC offset can generate audible clicks at the beginning and end of a file e Intelligibility filter consists of a Clarity filter which corrects the muffled sound effect often obtained when down sampling voice files and a Boost option which produces variable signal amplification in order to increase the perceived voice energy content of the recorded file The Intelligibility Filter can be selected only while doing a Convert Active Convert Current or a Batch Conversion operation Intelligibility filter options are set in the defaults section for the conversion functions Usually a weak clarity filter and no boost is the best choice Use trial and error to select the options that suit your voice files best e Low and high pass filter allows individual selection of either a high pass low cut or a low pass high cut filter For the high pass and low pass filters the 3 dB cutoff frequencies can be chosen with a 1 Hz resolution Acco
111. ignal Low pass Lets frequencies lower than the cut off frequency through Removes the frequencies above the cut off Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 130 Vox Studio 3 User Guide frequency There is always a finite slope around the cut off frequency going from the untouched to the removed section Microlog US provider of computer telephony systems Milliseconds Thousandths of a second Modulation Variation of a wave to convey a signal or information Mu law The PCM companding standard used in the US and Japan Natural MicroSystems US provider of components and tools to assemble computer telephony systems NewVoice US provider of components and tools to assemble computer telephony systems Nibble Four bits of binary information Two nibbles can be stored in one byte NMS Natural MicroSystems US provider of components and tools to assemble voice processing systems Normalize To make the volume of a recording as uniformly loud as possible while minimizing distortion of the sound This is done in Vox Studio by normalizing average energy not amplitude of the signal Nortel Canadian Telecom giant Nortel also supplies Computer Telephony systems OKI Provider of amongst other things silicon chips that convert an analogue signal into a variant of ADPCM OKI chips were used on early Dialogic cards Pacific Image Wrote the SuperVoice voice mail application that comes with the PhoneBlaster card PCM Pulse cod
112. ignal clipping Also make sure you are not always recording at too low a level blue area Low level recordings require extra amplification later in the process and because this process amplifies both the desired signal and the background noise this could cause unnecessary background noise in your recordings A good compromise recording level is when the visual indication spends a lot of time in the green and yellow areas and sometimes goes very briefly into the red one Use the volume control applet that came with your sound card this is card dependent to adjust the input sensitivity such that the monitor color bar usually stays in the green or yellow areas when you speak into the microphone Short peak bursts in the red area are of no importance Avoid staying in the blue area for too long you would be recording at a too low level The spectrum view shows the frequency content of the input signal It is useful to detect background noise or other anomalies It looks like this Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 69 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Recording level dB 6 S TTEA TA Pitt Tt TT A S T TD HN C TST a I 60 T Crane T E 9 100 200 s00 1000 2000 s000 10000 Hz Show dB scale Frequency scale C Wave C VUmeter Spectrum dB C dBV Clin Log The spectral content can be viewed in linear amplitude or dB energy mode and the frequency axis can be linear or logarithmic
113. ile palette as time goes on Let s summarize If you are a computer telephony professional and you need to record and then trim normalize and convert 15 000 telephony prompts for next week then Vox Studio is exactly what you need If you are an audiophile and want to add reverberation to your latest MP3 live show recording then Vox Studio is probably not the product you are looking for The accent is on raw productivity not on artistic creativity Now let s turn to the next chapters and look at what Vox Studio can do for you Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 9 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 3 Functionality This chapter summarizes the main capabilities of Vox Studio You will find detailed usage information in the chapter on menus and commands e Vox Studio provides a graphical user interface GUI to record and play prompt files in a wide variety of telecom formats You need a PC operating Windows and equipped with a multimedia sound card to record or play back e Vox Studio can perform file conversions between all the multimedia and telephony file formats it knows Conversion from stand alone files to multi prompt indexed files and back is possible too Vox Studio 3 supports long filenames You do not need a sound card if you are only going to do conversions The Prompter is similar to the visual tool from which TV news anchors and public speakers read their announcements e The Tape Loader will automatically digitize a prer
114. ilenames from ivr1087 wav to ivr9999 wav can be generated You can also define the default technique for the tape loader to detect the separation between recorded tape messages You can tap the space bar yourself whenever you recognize the audible end of a prompt or you can have Vox Studio do this for you by detecting a settable number of seconds of silence It would be a good idea to have 3 to 5 seconds of silence as a delimiter on your tape recordings You can also define what length of silence represents the end of all tape recordings This should be much longer than the longest separating silence on the tape You can also set the threshold level Vox Studio will use to make the difference between silence and non silence The threshold can be set in or in decibels Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 88 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Finally select the sample rate of the recorded wav files from 6 to 64 KHz and the disk folder where these will be stored 5 7 13 9 File Slicer defaults File slicer defaults r Prompt format Prompt filenames Sound family Wind _ _ _ A C Read filenames from a script file Sound type 16 bits linear Script file Sampling frequency Will be read from wave file Script file folder Prompts folder Save prompt files to Browse je Woxtudio WAYVFILES Slicer script file extension txt Prompt separation Slicing
115. ill would rather not install all you need to view help files in chm format you can use the pdf manual instead but remember that the pdf file was optimized for printing not for on screen reading If you require the documentation in yet another file format than those two contact Xentec with your specific need and we will try and accommodate your request to the best of our ability Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 6 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 2 Introduction This chapter introduces the Vox Studio program It briefly sketches the purpose and basic features of Vox Studio and gives some insight into the approach that led to the development of this specifically telecom oriented voice product Introduction to Vox Studio 3 The program philosophy 2 1 Introduction to Vox Studio Vox Studio is a software tool for telecom professionals lts purpose is to create speech files for computer telephony and voice processing applications such as voicemail interactive voice response call centers phone banking audiotex telephony portals voice gateways and the like Vox Studio speeds up the time consuming tasks involved in the production of voice files and produces high quality telephony files Such files are often classified as vox files hence the name Vox Studio With Vox Studio these voice files called prompts in the industry can be created on site using a PC a multimedia sound card a decent quality microphone and a reason
116. ing is overwhelming Most sound editors are good at supporting multimedia file formats not telecom file formats This is why Vox Studio s emphasis is on automation speed and telephony conversions and it does all that on thousands of files with one single command Basically Vox Studio does all of the repetitive and boring work automatically but still allows you to do manual tweaking when you want it Sound quality Professional answering services call centers voicemail systems and home banking systems require voice prompts of impeccable quality Our experience shows and our users confirm that the best quality telephony files are obtained by starting from studio quality recordings which are then converted using sophisticated algorithms to the target file format and coding algorithm used by the telephony hardware itself Direct recording through telephony hardware and a phone handset seldom gives acceptable results Open approach Until all hardware and software suppliers agree on a single common file format and coding algorithm for stand alone or multi prompt telephony voice files the diversity of file formats and coding algorithms will continue to be a barrier to development and migration across hardware platforms and software Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 8 Vox Studio 3 User Guide tools Vox Studio supports many different file formats from different telecom manufacturers and we will relentlessly continue to add to our f
117. io 3 User Guide Display requirements Disk space requirements Sound card requirements Microphone requirements Headphone requirements Speaker requirements Studio requirements In addition before you purchase a Vox Studio license you should run the free evaluation version of Vox Studio on the same PC just to make sure there are no unexpected incompatibilities 4 3 1 Windows Vox Studio 3 is a 32 bit Windows application It was written to be used with Windows 95 Windows 95 OSR2 Windows 98 Windows 98 SE Windows Me Windows NT4 Service Pack 6 and Windows 2000 It may or may not run on Apple computers with Windows emulation we have not tested this ourselves and therefore do not guarantee functionality on these machines Obviously you need a PC equipped with a 32 bit version of Windows to use Vox Studio 3 You need to have Windows sound card drivers properly installed prior to using the recording and playback capabilities of Vox Studio Consult the installation manual of your multimedia sound card for driver installation details Test the installation of your sound card with the software that came with the card before attempting to use Vox Studio The toolbar functionality and the Vox Studio help file require at least Internet Explorer version 4 01 to be installed on your system This functionality is tightly integrated with the operating system If you use an old operating system such as Windows 95 you need to make sure to have at least ver
118. ion on the components and then regroup these in the other indexed format Group to indexed Dialogic Ungroup from indexed Dialogic Group to indexed NMS Ungroup from indexed NMS 3 10 Offset removal functionality Vox Studio has the capability to re center a sound signal around the zero baseline if for whatever reason a DC offset or a very low frequency interference has been added to the original sound signal Some low cost sound cards can introduce very significant and disturbing DC offsets You don t necessarily hear the offset but it may cause a loud click at the beginning or end of a file Centering removes the signal s DC bias and is therefore also useful if the signal has to be amplified considerably 3 11 Sound volume normalization functionality For intelligibility and consistency purposes menu prompts and recorded messages should all be played loud and clear to the telephone line and if possible they should all have similar perceptible sound volumes It is not always easy to assemble several hundred messages for a telephony voice processing application and have them all recorded at nearly constant and nearly maximum amplitude Sometimes it may be necessary to combine messages recorded during different recording sessions These messages may not all have the same sound level Here again Vox Studio can help Vox Studio can automatically normalize the sound energy in all your files Define the desired maximum sound energy then
119. ion uses one of those this may be the format you need Vox Studio supports Rockwell s 4 bits ADPCM 3 bits ADPCM and 2 bits ADPCM all sampled at 7 200 samples s When specific boards use Rockwell chips but have defined their own file formats these are treated as distinct formats by Vox Studio for instance the Creative Labs PhoneBlaster format which is a file format that includes a header 6 2 21 SCII format SCII is a French manufacturer of telephony cards and ISDN interfaces The SCII coding format is a variant of G 723 CCITT 32 KBps ADPCM 6 2 22 SoundDesigner II format The ProTools SoundDesigner II format comes to us from the Mac world It is used frequently in studio environments Vox Studio supports the 16 bit SoundDesigner format at 44 1 and 48 0 KHz Note that these are also the sample rates used on CDs and DATs Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 112 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 6 2 23 Voicetek Aspect Generations formats The Aspect previously Voicetek file formats supported by Vox Studio are formats with a file header The usual extension for Aspect Voicetek formats is vsn You can select from the following coding types 32 KBps OKI ADPCM at 8 KHz 24 KBps OKI ADPCM at 6 KHz A law PCM Mu law PCM 6 2 24 Windows wav formats A large number of file coding types for wav files have been registered with Microsoft and the following are supported for wav files in Vox Studio 8 bits linear PCM 16 bits
120. ique format Elan Informatique is a French manufacturer of telephony cards and interfaces They have a lot of experience in applying the CNET text to speech PSOLA technology in telephony applications The Elan Informatique coding format is a variant of G 721 CCITT 32 KBps ADPCM 6 2 6 Group 2000 formats The Group 2000 file formats supported by Vox Studio are formats with a file header The usual extension for Group 2000 formats is vsn You can select between the following codings OKI ADPCM at 6 or 8 KHz A law PCM Mu law PCM 6 2 7 IBM Directalk formats Vox Studio currently supports the IBM DirecTalk A law format Support for the other formats is imminent 6 2 8 IMA ADPCM ADPCM stands for Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation ADPCM is a lossy compression mechanism There are various flavors of ADPCM This particular algorithm was suggested by the International Multimedia Association IMA IMA ADPCM compresses data recorded at various sampling rates Sound is encoded as a succession of 4 bit or 3 bit data packets Each data packet represents the difference between the current sampled signal value and the previous value The compression ratio obtained is relatively modest As an example 16 bit data samples encoded as 4 bit differences result in 4 1 compression format IMA ADPCM is similar to Intel s DVI audio format IMA ADPCM is directly supported on most Windows implementations as a native format Although the qualit
121. is command is similar to the previous Convert Active command except that it converts a whole bunch of files in batch mode and immediately saves the converted files to disk You can convert thousands of files in one go You can convert from any format known to Vox Studio to any other format known to Vox Studio You can do up sampling conversions and down sampling conversions See File Formats for a list of all the formats Vox Studio currently handles You can do file conversions in Vox Studio without any sound card installed on your system Of course you will need a sound card to record or play the files on your PC before or after conversion Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 55 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Convert from Convert to Sound family Sound family windows Wave y Natural Microsystems y Sound type Sound type wi be read from file y Sampling frequency wi be read from file y Won stendard sample rate 8 files from folder Browse C Woxtudio V S 300beta prompt way prompt2 way B vox single prompt 32K NMS 4DPCM y Sampling frequency eooo Hz y Non stendaralsample rate Browse C Woxtudio V S 300beta Vox Save new files to folder with filename extension C With no filename extension C with the original extension Settings Leader T railer Normalize Intelligibility Filter IV Save conversion results in log file C A
122. je MWOXTUDIONS3DOBETA Help Cancel The prompter parameters can also be set as system defaults through the Tools Defaults menu so that next time you use the prompter the same selections will be presented as defaults Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 44 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 5 3 Tape Loader The tape loader is similar to the Prompter but is specifically intended for the digitization of prerecorded studio tapes or CDs Script filec C Voxtudio VS 300beta Prompts bit Browse Filename radix Tape loader Filename trailer starts counting at 8 n Decimal e Hexadecimal Welcome to our interactive voice server The tape loader tool can automatically digitize a prerecorded studio tape or CD Connect the output of your tape or CD player to the line input of your sound card The tape loader will automatically detect the silent delimiting spaces between recorded prompts cut your recordings there and save the digitized data in preassigned filenames as defined by an ASCII script file Again this script file is fully compatible with the prompter and the group ungroup script files The loader can also automatically create incrementing filenames which relieves you from the task of creating a script file Once correctly set up and started the tape loader does all the digitizing without operator intervention While the tape loader digitizes your tape or CD it shows you on screen what it is doing s
123. k clarity filter and no boost is usually the best choice but it may require some trial and error to figure out what setting is best for your sound files 3 14 Filtering functionality The high pass or if you prefer low cut filter has a programmable cutoff frequency It effectively removes frequency components below a selected cutoff frequency from your sound file This is useful to remove rumble and power line noise The low pass or if you prefer high cut filter also has a programmable cutoff frequency It effectively removes frequency components above a selected frequency from your sound file This is useful to remove hiss Use these filters only when needed and if you know precisely what you are doing This is going to affect your digitized files If Nyquist or aliasing mean nothing to you you should probably not touch these functions Always test filtering and other effects you apply to sound files before you get rid of the valuable originals There is NO need to use these filters when you do sample rate conversions as Vox Studio applies anti aliasing filters automatically and transparently 3 15 DTMF generation functionality Complex DTMF touch tone sequences of various lengths can be added to sound files DTMF digits and pauses are typed on a graphical telephone keypad like a portable dialer The DTMF digits 0 to 9 A to D and and are all available The default length of the individually produced DTMF tones and Copyrigh
124. ke working with Vox Studio much more productive Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 79 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 7 13 2 Output Format defaults Prompt output format Format Sound farnily Dialogic Sound type ADPCM Wave y Sampling frequency 11025 Hz y Won standard sample rate Help Save as default i This command allows selection of the default format presented when saving sound files This is the target format that will originally be selected by default when you open the dialog boxes associated with file saving operations If you plan to convert many files to the same format it makes sense to select this format as the default If you do not you will need more manual intervention when you use Vox Studio Selecting the right default here will make working with Vox Studio much smoother Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 80 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 7 13 3 Folder defaults Default folders a folders A folder e voxtudiowwavfles 00 Ge for ie Way files Telephony files All files V Follow changes M Save on exit Browse Output folder fe Wwoxtudiowoxfiles ey for ls Wav files Telephony files C Allfiles IV Follow changes M Save on exit Telephony filename extensions Input files Output files vox vce vsn sd2 snd vox Help Save as defaut OK Cancel This command allows selection of the default di
125. l fill the complete graphical window Click on the same button again Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 31 Vox Studio 3 User Guide to stop using the zoom in cursor The positioning tool above the graph shows the relative position of the currently zoomed part in white with respect to the complete file Click the a button The button remains active until you press it again The cursor changes into a magnifying glass Use your mouse to select a screen section that will contain what currently fills the complete graphical window Click the same button again to stop zooming out Click the gt button and the complete sound file will be displayed in the graph window no zoom factor 5 1 7 Scrolling a zoomed graph Scrolling is done with the Scroll toolbar buttons y ily gt Click the y button The current visible window will slide to the left in the complete file Click the gt button The current visible window will slide to the right in the complete file When you scroll left or right the positioning tool above the graph shows the relative position of the currently zoomed part in white with respect to the complete file Click the iy button and the cursor will change into a hand You can now manually drag the current visible window within the complete file Click the same button again to stop scrolling manually 5 2 File menu This menu is used to open close or save the files you work with to view file properties or to te
126. l length of all file names added together should not exceed 65 000 characters so that if you use normal filenames you can play a lot of files indeed Play a list of files File format Files to play TF Esad tla 4 files from Browse bs a C Woxtudio VOXFILES Sound type DirecT alk y Hotel vox Sampling frequency TEE a 2000 Hz y i Fl A A AAA Help Cancel Tell Vox Studio what type of file you want to play If you select a headerless format you will have to give additional coding and sample rate information If not Vox Studio will read this information automatically from the file headers 5 sec of each file Non standard saniple rates You can click a selection button so that the function only plays the first so many seconds of each file This length is adjustable The following window appears when you press OK Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 73 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Playing D2 wav Length 6 Sec 812 Sample rate 44 100 kHz Channels Mono Format 16 bit linear Wave p _ Aentec nysa All files then automatically play one after the other You can check which file is currently playing by looking at the title bar Pressing the Skip button skips to the next file in the list You can also pause or end playback It is thus possible to scan through hundreds of files very rapidly irrespective of file format as lo
127. lay Open Windows Explorer or an equivalent program of your choice select a folder and using Windows usual Left Click Shift Left Click Control Left Click mouse commands select all the files you want to play in Vox Studio Drag the selection over the screen and bring it over the Vox Studio window or if Vox Studio is minimized hold it over the icon in the taskbar until the Vox Studio window opens and then drop it on the rightmost button of the player toolbar the button with bue red and green arrows et voila your files will all play in Vox Studio This works with wav files but also with telephony files You cannot mix file types within a single drag and drop operation though all files should be of the same type Ej lt 4 gt 00 mu gt gt Drop the files on the rightmost gt button to play them 5 1 5 Selecting a sound segment Selecting a sound segment is simple just click and drag the mouse over the area you want to select Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 30 Vox Studio 3 User Guide The selected area changes color You can enlarge or shrink an existing selection by pressing the Shift key on your keyboard and clicking with your mouse to the right or left of the current selection The selection can be extended or reduced You can listen to the current selection by pressing the play button C WoxtudioWVA FILES Male WAY aay 0 000 1 000 2 000 3 000 4 000 16 bits linear Wave Mono 22050 Hz
128. ld be 300 milliseconds Note that the Leader Trailer option is actually capable of adding silence to your file if you request more leading or trailing silence than your file actually contains If the voice files you are trimming are not recorded in optimal conditions it may be very useful to perform a Center or a Normalize operation on your file before you apply the Leader Trailer command This has the effect of flattening the low frequency or DC signal background on the zero line and pumping up the signal which makes it so much easier to perform a good threshold detection on your file Normalize sound volume allows easy and rapid production of prompt files with equal and for most telephony applications preferably reasonably high sound volume levels The dialog box allows you to select the maximum sound energy desired This volume selection can be done in of the maximum on screen amplitude in dB or in dBm dBV The current file will be scanned for maximum sound energy levels and the whole file will be multiplied by a factor that will bring the maximum sound energy to the desired level Vox Studio does not measure peak AMPLITUDE it measures peak ENERGY over a duration of several milliseconds about the duration of a spoken syllable Vox Studio levels are internally calibrated for steady pure sine waves at 800Hz This may confuse you in the beginning as the best setting in Vox Studio usually is a choice of about 65 of maximum energy no
129. le 64K Mu law Sampling frequency Sampling frequency wil be read from file 8000 Hz v Non standard sample rate Non standard sample rate Save new files to folder Browse Read files from folder Browse Vos VONFILES C Woxtudio WAYVFILES with filename extension Vox C With no filename extension With the original extension Settings Leader Trailer Normalize Intelligibility Filter 65 00 ZAMS MV Normalize sound volume to 3 74 dB I Center sound around 0 3 74 dBW Help Save as defaults Cancel e Convert from to You can select the default source directory for files to be converted and the default target directory for converted files You can also select the default file types and the extension for the converted output files These are the default values that will be presented when you open a batch conversion window You can set a default target sample rate for the converted file i e the number of signal samples per second The Nyquist theorem states that the highest frequency component in any sound file cannot exceed 1 2 the frequency at which the file is sampled remember that when you set your defaults You can select any of the standard telephony or multimedia sample rates from a list but you can also input a custom non standard sample rate if you need to A batch conversion log file voxbatch log is saved in the same directory as the
130. ll files cirio 35 Configuring the prompter cceeeee 44 Configuring the tape loader ccccceeee 46 Contents in the Help Menu eeeee 97 Contents of user guide 5 Contextual Menu coocccciciccccccnnncconnncnnnnncnannnos 101 Conversion and quality eeeeeeeees 118 Conversion functionality oooonnnninnncnnnnnnn 12 Conversion speed and CPU ccccceeees 21 Convert a file in Memory ooooccnnccnnnnnnncccnnnns 48 Convert Active command 52 Convert Transform Active defaults 83 Converting fileS oonooocicnnnnididinnicccccnnnnaccnnno 48 Converting many files at ONCE 0c 55 Copy sound to the clipboard 39 COPY Eneida cities 123 CPU and speed requirements 000008 21 Create folders for Vox Studio ooooooccccnnccccnnn 18 Creating a new file ccc eeee teen 33 Customize the program workspace 75 Cut sound to the clipboard 39 Cutting a large multi prompt wav file 47 Cutting copying and pasting sound 13 OB Calibrations ecen eai ee 92 DC bias removal occccccncncnnnnnnnnnnnnnnccnnnnnnos 14 Decibel calibration oooocccnnninininnn 92 Default settings 18 Defaults MenNU ococccccnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnninnninnnnnos 78 Delete a segment of sound occccccncnnnnnnnnnnns 39 Delete selecti0N cccccccccnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnos 39 Copyright Xe
131. ll fill the complete graph pane thereby temporarily hiding other graph windows shown in the graph pane and its window control buttons will seem to disappear they don t disappear they just migrate to the right of the Vox Studio menu bar A maximized graph window looks like this CWYoxtudioWvWAYFILESIGM oicesWDemo waw 0 000 1 000 2 000 3 000 4 000 16 bits linear Wave Mono 22050 Hz 109712 samples 4 Sec 976 5 1 3 Drag and drop load Open Windows Explorer or an equivalent program of your choice select a folder and using Windows usual Left Click Shift Left Click Control Left Click mouse commands select all the files you want to load in Vox Studio Drag the selection over the screen and drop it over the Vox Studio window Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 29 Vox Studio 3 User Guide or if Vox Studio is minimized hold it over the icon in the taskbar until the Vox Studio window opens then drop it et voil your files will all load in Vox Studio That works not only with wav files but also with telephony files You cannot mix file types within a single drag and drop operation though all files should be of the same type For simplicity it is advisable to drop the selected files over the file tree pane as dropping them elsewhere may actually trigger the playback of the dropped files see next paragraph E Greet wav MB Hotel vox Drop the files in the window to load them 5 1 4 Drag and drop p
132. lly minimized All spurious sounds will otherwise end up recorded in your prompts The size and geometry of the recording room and the way it is furnished have an important impact on the perceived quality of your recordings The resulting impression can go from cathedral like reverberation to a locked up in a wardrobe kind of sound Find a reasonable compromise If you cannot find a suitable studio your microphone will have to be extremely directional If you cannot afford one of those get the recording work done by a professional studio For more information look in the chapter on tips and techniques Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 24 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 Menus Commands and Buttons All Vox Studio commands can be activated from the menu bar at the top of the main Vox Studio window File Edit View Prompters Convert Tools Window Help Some handy command shortcuts are also available through toolbars and buttons as shown in the user interface section Note to program developers You can incorporate the Vox Studio conversion capabilities into your own products All file conversion commands can also be given from external programs using the command line API or the conversion DLL API Contact Xentec or browse our website for detailed programming information User Interface File menu Edit menu View menu Prompters menu Convert menu Tools menu Defaults menu Window menu Help menu Buttons mouse and keyboard
133. lly used through a friendly graphical user interface GUI but it also offers both a command line conversion and a DLL conversion capability This allows programmers to use the Vox Studio sound file conversion features from within their own applications Command line and DLL reference information is supplied as a separate file optionally copied to your hard disk when Vox Studio installs The best way to find out about Vox Studio is to read the manual browse through the help file voxtudio chm then switch on your Multimedia PC and start playing with Vox Studio itself Vox Studio is designed and marketed by Xentec in Belgium Philosophy behind Vox Studio 2 2 The program philosophy Productivity Vox Studio is designed to be a productivity tool for sound engineers who regularly need to produce a very large number of top quality telecom voice files but have no time to manually cut paste and save chunks of sound over and over again Some of our customers use Vox Studio to produce literally tens of thousands of voice files a week Vox Studio is not another manual sound file editor There are lots of excellent manual sound editors around if what you are looking for is creativity If what you are looking for is plain productivity and telecom specific features then Vox Studio is what you need When you use a traditional sound editor the amount of time that creeps into the very repetitive tasks of prompt file recording cutting trimming and sav
134. logic Indexed file eem Sound type ADPCM y Sampling frequency Indexed format Sound type Jap PCM hd Sampling frequency will be read from file 8000 Hz Non standard sample rater Optionally a script file can be produced for seamless regrouping of the stand alone components after manipulation 5 6 6 Group to NMS indexed file Group to NMS indexed file allows concatenation of several stand alone telephony voice files often with a vox or vce extension into one single indexed NMS telephony voice file often with a vox extension One of the very nice features in this version of Vox Studio is that you can group any type of single prompt file into a grouped indexed file If a format conversion is necessary Vox Studio does the conversion transparently on the fly It is thus possible for instance to start with single prompt wav files and group them into an indexed vox file as a single operation There is no need to start with NMS files to obtain an NMS indexed grouped file To be grouped input files have to be single prompt files they cannot themselves be multi prompt grouped files Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 62 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Group to Natural Microsystems indexed file m Bowe Bome C Woxtudios Prompts txt C Voxtudio oxfiles Piainpt GIG Enna CWoxtudios Indexed Files EN E 8000 Hz 8000 Hz Vox Studio
135. low pitched sounds This is most audible if the voice talent has a voice with high bass content to begin with Use the Intelligibility Filter option in the Vox Studio conversion dialog boxes to correct this effect The file is playing but produces a very loud screeching sound This means one has selected the wrong coding algorithm to record the file If you chose an ADPCM variant try A law or Mu law for instance or another form of ADPCM The most efficient approach of course is to ask the Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 119 Vox Studio 3 User Guide manufacturer exactly what coding and sample rate are required e The file is playing right it is understandable and at the right speed but there is a short noise burst at the beginning of every file This means that both the correct coding algorithm and sample rate were used but the wrong file format One is probably playing a file in one of the file formats that have a file header at the beginning while the application expects a headerless file If you are unsure about the file format a particular platform needs it may be useful to take a sample file known to play correctly on the platform and to bring it over to the PC where Vox Studio is installed Then it is usually easy to identify the format of that file by playing it using Vox Studio Use the same format for making new files 7 7 Sample files The sample file test wav that comes with your distribution CD is a good vehicle t
136. ly on the signal prior to amplitude normalization Finally although this functionality is described elsewhere in the chapter describing the calibration Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 50 Vox Studio 3 User Guide tool remember that Vox Studio s dBV or dBm display capability can be calibrated so that the dB levels you see on screen actually match the dB levels that the same signal will generate on the target telephone line Center around zero automatically re centers the sound file around the zero baseline to eliminate DC offsets caused by your sound card and possibly by very low frequency interference Note when a Normalize command is issued a Center command is in fact performed automatically on the file prior to amplitude normalization Depending on the quality of your sound card and your recording setup it may also be very advantageous to perform a centering operation before doing leader trailer work which requires rather precise threshold detection Vox Studio does not automatically perform a centering operation before every leader trailer command but you may select this option You can perform a quick visual check using the graphical waveform display in the main window Record a file with nothing but silence using your onboard sound card Save the file and then reload it into Vox Studio You should see a clean horizontal line exactly superimposed on the zero baseline If you see two lines your hardware does generate sign
137. me Vox Studio can be reinstalled whenever you need to but only on one single PC for each purchased license We trace any instance of Vox Studio to protect our legitimate customers our distributors and ourselves Violations of the software license will always be prosecuted to the maximum extent permissible under the law If you are upgrading Vox Studio to a newer version the new version replaces the previous one The previous version of Vox Studio covered by that license has to be taken out of circulation and discarded Failure to do so is a violation of your Vox Studio license agreement When you stop using a license on a PC to install the license on another one you should unregister the license from the old PC before installing it on another PC A special Unregister button is provided to that effect Unregistering simply returns the program back to demo mode From time to time Xentec may decide to change license keys for any version of Vox Studio In that case registered users can obtain a new key for their existing equivalent license free from Xentec Please read the End User License Agreement for full details on the Vox Studio software license The End User License Agreement is a binding contract between Xentec and ts customers 8 2 Support Contact your local distributor or Xentec for Vox Studio technical support upgrades and sales information The support rules are simple e Technical support is provided to you by the company wh
138. med automatically on the file prior to amplitude normalization Depending on the quality of your sound card and your recording setup it may also be very advantageous to perform a centering operation before doing leader trailer work which requires rather precise threshold detection Vox Studio does not automatically perform a centering operation before every leader trailer command but you may select this option You can perform a quick visual check using the graphical waveform display in the main window Record a file with nothing but silence using your onboard sound card Save the file and then reload it into Vox Studio You should see a clean horizontal line exactly superimposed on the zero baseline If you see two lines your hardware does generate significant offset If you see only one line the offset generated is small enough that you can disregard it If you see green rubbish grass on the baseline your recording setup picks up unwanted noise which you will certainly hear in the final recording If you manipulate files that were recorded on another workstation it is a good idea to load the files first and visually check them for a possible DC shift DC offsets are very disturbing whenever you need to amplify a signal or do threshold detection Also too much DC offset can generate audible clicks at the beginning and end of a file Intelligibility filter consists of a Clarity filter which corrects the muffled sound effect often obtained
139. mpled at 8 KHz The supported Centigram formats are 32K ADPCM 24K ADPCM 16K ADPCM These formats have a file header that contains all the necessary information for decompression Therefore when Vox Studio opens such a file it will not ask you to enter additional information such as sample rate or coding algorithm 6 2 4 Dialogic formats There are several Dialogic telephony type file formats as enumerated below The usual file extension is vox but this a habit not a rule Some Dialogic based voice processing system developers use different file extensions Dialogic telephony cards use sampling rates of 6 0 6 053 8 0 8 117 or 11 025 KHz For some cards the sampling rate is programmable for others it is not The sampling rate to use depends on the card you are using Consult your telephony hardware supplier for the exact sample rate your voice processing hardware requires One of the annoying characteristics of native Dialogic telephony file formats is that they contain only raw data except for the new Dialogic wav formats Most have no header with additional information such as coding algorithm sampling rate or resolution Therefore when referring to such a file in Vox Studio or any other program it is imperative to specify the exact file coding and sampling rate This may puzzle you in the beginning but you will soon learn to discern Vox Studio s difference in behavior regarding files with or without headers When Vox Studi
140. n notwithstanding other sections of this EULA you may not resell or otherwise transfer for value the SOFTWARE PRODUCT You may however freely distribute the demo versions for evaluation purposes provided you do not in any way alter the free unregistered SOFTWARE PRODUCT demo version Limitations on Reverse Engineering Decompilation and Disassembly You may not reverse engineer decompile or disassemble the SOFTWARE PRODUCT Separation of Components The SOFTWARE PRODUCT is licensed as a single product Its component parts may not be separated for use on more than one computer e Rental You may not rent lease or lend the SOFTWARE PRODUCT e Support Services Xentec may provide you with support services related to the SOFTWARE PRODUCT Support Services Use of Support Services is governed by the Xentec policies terms and programs described in the user manual in online documentation and or in other Xentec provided materials or communications Any supplemental software code provided to you as part of the Support Services shall be considered part of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT and subject to the terms and conditions of this EULA With respect to technical information you provide to Xentec as part of the Support Services Xentec may use such information for its business purposes including for product support and development Xentec will not utilize such technical information in a form that personally identifies you Software Transfer Y
141. n of the display with respect to the complete file and also shows the current selection if any exists The Scroll command can also be activated by clicking on ily in the toolbar section Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 41 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 4 6 Scroll Left This only makes sense if the file has been zoomed You can now click to interactively move left to the portion of the sound file you want to see on screen Each click moves the position by 80 of the total visible window A position bar at the top of the graphical window shows the relative position of the display with respect to the complete file and also shows the current selection if any exists The Scroll Left command can also be activated by clicking on y in the toolbar section 5 4 7 Scroll Right This only makes sense if the file has been zoomed You can now click to interactively move right to the portion of the sound file you want to see on screen Each click moves the position by 80 of the total visible window A position bar at the top of the graphical window shows the relative position of the display with respect to the complete file and also shows the current selection if any exists The Scroll Right command can also be activated by clicking on gt in the toolbar section 5 4 8 Previous View This command simply shows the previous graphical screen s so that you can go back to a previous zoom or scroll position This command loops If you click
142. nal 16 bit signal Nobody can avoid these basic laws of physics This is not as dramatic as it sounds because in the end you are going to use this message over telephone lines anyway and telephone bandwidth is only from 300 to 3 400 Hz You also should expect a very slight but noticeable degradation resulting essentially from the resampling processes themselves Record directly into the final target sample rate if your hardware allows it and does it well Always check the sound quality of any conversion process on a typical original before committing hundreds of files to it Remember that differences are less noticeable when played back over a voice telephony card and to the telephone network Check quality on the final target hardware A clean source file converts much much better than one with background noise This may be surprising but tiny background noises usually end up amplified in the converted file Do not spend time tweaking Vox Studio it does not need it Spend your time making sure your original recordings are of the highest possible studio quality High quality recordings convert very nicely but junk remains junk Try the example recordings that came with Vox Studio to benchmark conversion quality You will see conversion quality is superb if your original is of comparable quality Always try to record your originals at 16 bit resolution not at 8 bit Vox Studio can up convert a low sample rate low resolution telephony file back to f
143. nation of sound card mouse monitor and PC stick with it Do not record in a room where others work Close your window to keep outside noise away Avoid recording under the flight path of Concorde Record in the evenings at night or during weekends if you camnot avoid hearing slight workday noises Even slight noises get recorded and cause problems later You would be amazed at how many little noises actually disturb a place you think is quiet The ticking of the clock on your office wall the humming of your fluorescent lights hot water flowing through your heating system the air conditioning a noisy hard disk the cooling system of your PC All of these add up Stay in the recording room for two minutes close your eyes and listen with acute attention Do you hear anything at all If you do select another studio because your microphone is likely to hear it too Make test recordings with silence only Do this in the recording room with the PC sound card and microphone you want to use Place the mike on the table and start a 30 second silence recording at 16 bits and 44 KHz Play this recording back through headphones not through speakers Listen with great attention Do you really obtain absolute silence only Look at the recorded signal in dB view Is everything that is visible below 60dB or less If not solve this problem before you go one single step further Clean recordings convert very nicely to other formats recordings with backgro
144. nd 008 62 Hard disk requirements cccceeeeeees 22 Headphones requireMment cseseeeeeeeeeeeee 23 Help MO MU esses seeteeeee ate ree tee teesaenceet 97 High and low pass filtering functionality 15 How conversion affects quality 118 IBM Directalk formats ccceeeeeeees 108 IMA ADPCM format 108 Improving speech perception 000 15 Indexed TICS mirarla tata 13 Input format defaults ooooonicnncccnnnncnnnnccnncco 79 Installing the program s es 17 Installing Vox Studio cseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 17 Intelligibility Filter ecccceseeeeeeeeeeeneeeeeees 15 InterVoice formats 109 Introduction to Vox Studio 7 ITU CCITT format coooccccnnncccccccnnninnnnnnnnnnn 105 Judging quality 23 Keyboard shortcuts 101 Legal terMS oooocnnnicccccccnnncccnnnnannncnnnancnnnnnns 123 License entry cooocccoccicccccccnnnccnnnnnn cnn cnn nana no nn 18 License ID and license key n se 97 LICENSE ISSUCS ccococccccccccccnncconnnanannccnnnncnnnnnns 121 License registration 97 LICENSING terms s 124 Listen to recordings oooocccccnncccccccnnnccnannannnnn 12 Loading files in Vox Studio 33 Loudness Of sound l 14 Low and high pass filtering functionality 15 Macintosh fil8S oooooocicnnnnididininicnccnnnnnccnnnn 112 Main functionalities oooononnnnnnnnninnnnnnnnm 10 Main WINdOWeisecoiiiaian a 2
145. nd is also available from the gt play button on the toolbar at the bottom of the graph pane if no selection is active and no zoom in has been made that button will play the whole sound file Playback starts at the beginning of the file if no cursor has been positioned in the file otherwise playback starts at the cursor position 5 7 7 Play All But Selection This is the opposite of the play selection command It plays everything as one single sound but skips the selected part of the file if any selection exists This allows you to listen to what a file would sound Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 71 Vox Studio 3 User Guide like if you were to delete the selected portion 5 7 8 Pause This command pauses playback Selecting the command again restarts playback where it had paused Ej 44 gt 00 mu po This command is also available from the du pause button on the toolbar at the bottom of the graph pane Pressing the pause button pauses playback Pressing it again restarts playback where it had paused 5 7 9 Stop This command terminates playback Ej lt 4 gt 00 mu gt gt This command is also available from the La stop button on the toolbar at the bottom of the graph pane Pressing the stop button ends playback 5 7 10 Record 6 0 6 28 Sec 239 H E Pressing the red record button opens a simple graphical window From there you can pause or stop the current recording Before sta
146. ng percent or decibels is also available in the program contextual menu shown when right clicking on a graph window Customize Yox Studio Layout Colors Graph fonts Prompter font System Colors Background color EN Scales color Sound color Zoom color Grid color m Selection color Po Sample Selection Zooming Cancel The colors tab allows customization of the colors used in the graph windows Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 76 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Customize Yox Studio Layout Colors Graph fonts Prompter font System E z TN fe Filename and infos Scales B z ait e Sample Welcome way The Graph fonts tab allows selection of the character fonts used in the graph windows Customize Yox Studio Layout Colors Graph fonts Prompter font System jE z aje ka lt lt Sample Welcome Cancel The Prompter font tab selects the character font used to display the message prompts on screen when using the Prompter Tape Loader and File Slicer Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 77 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Customize Yox Studio Layout Colors Graph fonts Prompter font System Undo Maximum number of Undo levels between O and 8 2 m Temp folder Folder to store temporary files Browse CAWINDOWS TEMP Use Windows temporary folder
147. ng as all the files are of the same format There is even an option to only play the first n seconds let us say 3 seconds of every selected file for quick identification or checking purposes The display indicates the file length in seconds and milliseconds the sampling rate in KHz the recording format used and the stereo mono status for wav files Some file formats like wav for instance have information headers at the beginning of the files For those files it is usually not necessary to indicate to Vox Studio what the precise recording parameters are for each file as Vox Studio will read this from the file itself For other file formats Vox Studio will prompt you for the file family Dialogic or CCITT for instance coding type e g A law or ADPCM and sampling frequency e g 8 KHz or 11 KHz If your files are of a single file family which has type information headers then you can mix files with different sampling rates or resolutions in a single play list command If not all files will need to have the same characteristics as there is no way Vox Studio can guess this information when going from one file to another The same functionality is also available to an external file manager program Windows Explorer for example You can select and drag all the filenames you want to play and drop them onto the Vox Studio play list icon at the bottom of the graph window the three colored arrows A slightly different window now appears
148. ntec nv 1996 2001 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Demo VersiO untada tr 123 Desktopi raa athe e aa aaia keds 25 Detecting DTMF tones 67 Detecting special telephony tones 66 Devices SelectiON oooonnnonnninnnnccnnnnninnnncccnnn 94 Dial string detection ooooccnnninncccnnnnnninnnccnnnno 16 Dial string generation 15 Dialogic fOrMatS oooonnnnnnnniconcccnnnncnnnnnccnnnns 106 Dialogic indexed files ooooooonnccnnnnnnnnnniacccccs 59 Dialogic Vap file generation ooonnnninn 59 Dictionary Of terMS oooooccnnnnccccccccnnccnnnnna nano 128 Digitizing a studio tape or audio CD 45 Digitizing a tape ooocooonccccnnnccnoccccnnncnnnn no nono 11 Disk space requirements 22 Display requirement ooooocicccccccnnnnicnncccnnncnos 22 Documentation formats eee 5 Drag and drop loading of files 29 Drag and drop play of files 30 Dropping files in Vox Studio cooo 29 DTMF defaults ao 93 DTMF detection functionality 16 DTMF filtering functionality oooo ooo ccnn 16 DTMF generation functionality 15 DTMF tone detection oooooiccocccccnncccccnccannncno 67 DTMF tone generation 66 Editing commands cccocccccnnoconcncncnncicnnncinnnos 38 Editing functionality c cccseeeseeseeees 13 Elan Informatique forMat ooooocoonnnnnnncccncoo 108 End User License Agreement
149. ntelligibility filter options are set in the defaults section for the conversion functions Usually a weak clarity filter and no boost is the best choice Use trial and error to select the options that suit your voice files best Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 54 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Low and high pass filter allows individual selection of either a high pass low cut or a low pass high cut filter For the high pass and low pass filters the 3 dB cutoff frequencies can be chosen with a 1 Hz resolution According to the Nyquist theorem the highest frequency component in any sampled file cannot exceed 1 2 the frequency at which the file is sampled Audible aliasing errors occur whenever the Nyquist theorem is overlooked It makes little sense to select a cutoff frequency above 1 2 the sampling frequency of the file DTMF filter removes signal components at and near the frequencies which correspond to one group of the DTMF frequencies This harsh treatment effectively removes talk off problems but also degrades the sound quality somewhat Use this only on files that really do cause talk off problems and cannot be rerecorded The DTMF filter has 3 strengths you can choose from weak attenuates 10 dB medium attenuates 20 dB and strong attenuates 30 dB Use the weakest filter that solves your talk off problem The Convert Active command can also be activated by clicking on in the toolbar section 5 6 3 Batch Convert Th
150. o You can click the tiny icon in the top left corner of Vox Studio and select close from the menu You can press Alt F4 on your keyboard when working in Vox Studio You can right click on the program icon on the taskbar and select Close from the pop up menu The Exit command can also be activated by clicking on in the toolbar section Panic closure The following method should only be used if none of the normal methods above work and when for some reason Vox Studio is frozen for several minutes and does not react to any command This should normally never happen and you should contact us if it does Press and hold Cirl Alt Del on your keyboard release the keys Select Vox Studio and click End task Vox Studio will terminate but all your unsaved work in Vox Studio and some changes to the defaults will be lost Again this is for program crashes only In NT you would have to start the task manager by right clicking in the Task bar and then kill the process 5 3 Edit menu This menu is used to perform manual cut and paste operations on individual files Most commands are also accessible via toolbar buttons Undo Cut Co Paste Delete Select All E 5 3 1 Undo This command undoes one or more previous edit commands The number of undo levels available is settable in the Vox Studio program options using the Tools Options System command The maximum number of undo levels is 8 Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 38
151. o single prompt vox files To produce multi prompt vox files you have to use the Group NMS command that does on the fly conversion to NMS formats It is thus possible to group wav files for instance into a vox file conversion is done automatically by Vox Studio Companding laws Vox Studio supports the NMS file format with both A law and Mu law companding at 8 000 samples per second NMS ADPCM Vox Studio supports the NMS file formats with ADPCM compression at 32 KBps 24 KBps and 16 KBps all at 8 000 samples per second 32 KBps is by far the most popular coding scheme for NUS cards 6 2 13 Newvoice formats The NewVoice CVSD format is supported at 24 Kbps 32Kbps 64Kbps 6 2 14 Next and Sun formats Vox Studio supports the following NeXT Sun formats 8 bits linear at 8KHz 22 05 KHz 44 1 KHz 16 bits linear at 8KHz 22 05 KHz 44 1 KHz A law at 8KHz 22 05 KHz 44 1 KHz Mu law at 8KHz 22 05 KHz 44 1 KHz 6 2 15 Nortel Generations formats The Nortel Generations file formats supported by Vox Studio are formats with a file header The usual extension for Nortel Generations formats is vsn You can select from the following coding types A law PCM Mu law PCM OKI ADPCM at 6 or 8 KHz Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 110 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 6 2 16 OKI file formats Vox Studio supports 4 bit OKI ADPCM in raw and wav file formats with sample rates at 8 and 16 KHz 6 2 17 Philips VoiceM
152. o produce DTMF sounds avoid their services Other speakers pronounce the letter S as if they were ssschnakes trying to hypnotize a prey not good either Test the speakers voice quality before and after conversion to the desired telephony format and play a few test prompts over the telephone network via a voice telephony card Use a PC with no fan e g a portable PC or one with a very quiet fan Keep the directional microphone at a distance and directed away from the PC Use a quality sound card in a PC with a well filtered power supply Use a well shielded low emission monitor Avoid recording with an 8 bit sound card or with a 16 bit sound card set for 8 bit resolution We have Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 116 Vox Studio 3 User Guide only included 8 bit capability in Vox Studio for those rare occasions where you absolutely need to use an existing 8 bit resolution file and do not care about quality Otherwise you should stick to 16 bit recordings If you hear hissing noises in your recordings that cannot be related to surrounding noise reaching the microphone you are having electromagnetic interference problems Swap your sound card for another better one Move the sound card to another free slot in your PC Try another monitor If that does not help try swapping your PC platform for one that generates less interference Make sure no hissing noises are produced while you move the mouse Once you have found a clean combi
153. o reads wav files there is no need to tell it what the file contains this information is found in the file header itself When Vox Studio reads native Dialogic vox files it is necessary to tell it what the exact file type is as this information is NOT in the file Obviously when Vox Studio has to write in any format with or without a header it is always necessary to tell it what file type it needs to generate as there is no way for Vox Studio to guess what you want to do In addition to the formats enumerated below Vox Studio can concatenate vox files into vap format this operation is called grouping in the program Inversely it can ungroup a vap file into a number of vox files Here are the Dialogic telephony sound file formats known to Vox Studio today ADPCM OKI variant and ADPCM Wav ADPCM stands for Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation There are various flavors of ADPCM The algorithm we have implemented in this version is the original algorithm used by Dialogic voice processing hardware Future versions of Vox Studio will support more flavors of ADPCM required for other telephony hardware OKI ADPCM as used by Dialogic compresses data recorded at 6 0 6 053 8 0 or 8 117 KHz sampling rates Sound is encoded as a succession of 4 bit nibbles glued together in pairs in an 8 bit stream of data Each 4 bit nibble represents the difference between the current sampled signal value Copyright Xentec nv 1996
154. o retrieve later if you so desire You will be given the choice to install the Vox Studio program the normal choice for average users and or additional documentation which programmers can use if they wish to use Vox Studio from within their own programs for advanced programmers only Vox Studio does not install or overwrite any system files during installation All the files Vox Studio installs go into the Vox Studio program folder Installation should be very straightforward but if you nevertheless have any problem installing Vox Studio and you cannot find the cause of the problem yourself contact Xentec by e mail at support xentec be or call us directly at 32 2 757 0666 during European working hours For your safety we perform thorough virus checks on all the programs we make available on our web site and on the ones we upload to other sites ourselves We cannot however check all the other sources through which Vox Studio may be made available lt may therefore be wise to scan the installation package for possible virus presence especially if you obtained it from a source that does not guarantee the safety of its downloads Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 17 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 4 1 2 Create working folders You will most probably use a lot of folders directories for the technically inclined in order to keep your sound and program files well organized We suggest you plan on having at least three directories
155. o sold you Vox Studio e Technical support is provided to the legitimate owner of a valid registered license Xentec Xentec nv sa De Helftwinning 2 3070 Kortenberg Belgium Tel 32 2 757 0666 Fax 32 2 757 0777 E mail support xentec be Web http www xentec be If you have problems using Vox Studio please start by looking for a possible solution to your problem Copyright O Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 122 Vox Studio 3 User Guide in the on disk manual or visit our web site at http www xentec be Try to run Vox Studio when absolutely no other programs are running Make sure you use the correct file format If this fails contact your local distributor or Xentec for support our address is shown above We will be happy to be of service As a licensed customer you will get our undivided attention and we will do our best to help you May we remind you however that a valid license ID is required for support and that you need to be the owner of the license Support is given promptly by e mail or fax When you contact us kindly have the following information ready Your license ID number and Vox Studio version number A complete and detailed description of the problem A written description of the command sequence that consistently produces your problem Windows version number and release number Complete PC description CPU clock speed memory size hard disk size free space on all disk partitions location of temporary dire
156. o test the conversion trimming normalizing and other functionalities available under this version of Vox Studio The current sample file is provided courtesy of recording studio Vert Fonc 16 rue des amandiers 37000 Tours France Tel 33 2 4761 4205 Fax 33 2 4761 5590 E mail verfonce club internet fr Other quality sample files from other studios are provided on the distribution CD These are not included in the downloadable package in order to limit the size of the downloadable file These files are provided courtesy of their respective authors for testing and evaluation purposes only and should not be used in commercial applications Contact information is provided on the CD Contact the authors for additional information and for custom production requests Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 120 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 8 Support section You are entitled to technical support for your registered licensed copy of Vox Studio Read the following paragraphs to understand how you can obtain support for Vox Studio Registration Support Functional demo Third party trademarks Visit the Xentec web site Send an e mail to Xentec support End User License Agreement 8 1 Registration Vox Studio registration Please fill in all identification fields below Name JohnDoe es sss SSSSS Company kenteen sss Street De Helftwinnina2 City Kortenberg ss lt sS C CiS State Bra ssss sSSSSS Zip
157. o that once in a while you can reassure yourself that all is going well For the tape loader to work well your recordings need to be clean without any background noise in the silent passages It is also crucial that you very carefully select the threshold level at which Vox Studio separates silence from non silence This is a settable parameter If that accuracy is not achievable you can still use the tape loader in its semiautomatic mode where you simply tap the space bar when you hear the delimiting silence between two prompts If you have background noise in your original recordings or if you have clean recordings but fail to correctly select the silence detection threshold you may find it very hard to obtain consistent results with the tape loader in automatic mode When used with a direct microphone connection rather than connected to the output of a tape or CD Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 45 Vox Studio 3 User Guide player you can even use the tape loader as a sort of voice operated prompter Speak a message remain silent speak the next message and so on To facilitate the use of the tape loader as a voice operated prompter the tape loader will show you the next script text to be recorded on screen as soon as it detects the end of the previous one This gives you enough time to read the first sentence mentally before you start speaking it This is the fastest way to record prompts in real time The Tape Loader command
158. of vibration or oscillation of a signal as measured in hertz Hz or cycles per second The normal human ear can detect sounds ranging from 20 Hz to 18 000 Hz The telephone network only carries signals with frequencies between about 300 and 3400 Hz Group 2000 European provider of computer telephony systems header A file header is a chunk of data at the beginning of a file where Vox Studio can find useful information such as recording sample rate coding algorithm recording length and so on Not all voice file formats have file headers If Vox Studio has to open a file that has no header it will ask the program user for the missing information it needs High pass Lets frequencies higher than the cut off frequency through Removes the frequencies below the cut off frequency There is always a finite slope around the cut off frequency going from the untouched to the removed section Idle channel noise Residual noise present when the voice signal has a zero amplitude Interactive Voice Response IVR Dial a number hear information you select by pressing the keys on your telephone InterVoice US provider of components and tools to assemble computer telephony systems IVR Interactive voice response Dial a number hear information you select by pressing the keys on your telephone Leading At the beginning of the sound file Linear Used here with the meaning non compressed and non companded straight representation of the original s
159. og box You can even show or hide various elements of the graph window such as the position bar on top the scales the sound file format and other visible items by configuring this in the Tools Options Layout dialog box C Woxtudio TEST WAY 0 000 2 000 4 000 6 000 8 000 10 000 12 000 16 hits linear Wave Mono 22050 Hz 326200 samples 14 Sec 794 The sound signal can also be displayed as energy expressed in decibels it then looks like this C Woxtudio TEST WAY Ee 0 000 2 000 4 000 6 000 8 000 10 000 12 000 16 hits linear Wave Mono 22050 Hz 326200 samples 14 Sec 794 Under the graph pane you will find buttons that make it possible to record rewind play pause stop or fast forward very much like a cassette recorder This is what the player buttons look like Ej 4 00 mu D gt gt The file tree pane located on the left of the main window under the toolbars shows the names and Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 27 Vox Studio 3 User Guide icons of all the files you have loaded in Vox Studio When you click one of those file icons the corresponding waveform is shown in a graphical window in the graph pane on the right When a filename has appended to it this signals that the image in memory has been changed from the original disk image the sound signal has been edited filtered or converted in Vox Studio E Greet wav E Hotel vox Menu vap There is also a general stat
160. oice editors sold by Dialogic and their resellers A script file is used to tell Vox Studio which stand alone files to regroup into an indexed file This script file is identical in content to the script file used for the prompter and tape loader commands See elsewhere for a detailed definition of the script file format If the files to be grouped are chosen manually i e you are not using a script file for the grouping operation you can press the Prompt Ordering button to open the prompt ordering window and select the physical order under which you want the files to appear in the indexed file Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 60 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Prompt ordering Seven way Pressing the up and down arrow buttons moves the selected file up or down in the list You can keep those buttons pressed to move a file over a long distance in the list 5 6 5 Ungroup from Dialogic indexed file Allows expansion of a Dialogic indexed telephony file usually vap into its stand alone voice file components usually vox Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 61 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Ungroup from Dialogic indexed file Script file Prompt files M Generate a script file in Browse Save prompt files to i E jc Woxtudio jc Woxtudio VOXFILES Prompt format Sound family Indexed file to ungroup Browse CAWINDOWSAD JCAWINDOWS Desktop Indexedvap vap Dia
161. onority no background noise good volume etc If they are not start again until they are Do not attempt to convert unless the original recordings are perfect and sound professional Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 118 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Use Vox Studio to convert to the highest sample rate allowed by your telephony hardware for instance 8 KHz sample rates are better than 6 KHz and use A law or Mu law rather than ADPCM coding if you can 7 5 Sampling frequencies of old cards Some very old Dialogic telephony cards the ancient D 41 B for instance use 6 053 Hz and 8 117 Hz sample frequencies Newer cards use exactly 6 000 Hz and 8 000 Hz Vox Studio can accommodate both types You cannot buy the old cards anymore but they still are installed in systems in the field so you need to know about this requirement The difference is not noticeable when playing back speech files from one type of card to another However when precisely pitched tones DTMF for instance are recorded the difference may be significant Check with your telephony card vendor for the exact sample rate of the card s you are using Some telephony cards can play back at several programmable rates In that case check with your software vendor to select the exact sampling rate and file format that your applications need Remember that some telephony applications and cards need files sampled at 6 KHz others at 8 KHz and even others at 7 2 KHz Check wit
162. or example 44 KHz and 16 bits The resulting sound quality will be similar to the original however You cannot gain bandwidth and the signal information that was absent in the original will also be absent in the up converted file You cannot change a telephone quality file into a hi fi quality file but you can do the opposite Vox Studio uses digital signal processing to perform the signal conversions Each conversion involves many mathematical manipulations of the recorded files It is best to avoid unnecessary conversion steps and record or convert your master file directly to the desired target format if your sound card records well at that sample frequency Many sound cards unfortunately do not have good recording capabilities below 11 KHz sample rates they were optimized to be used at 11 22 and 44 KHz and nothing else If you plan to edit your files do this editing on a copy of your master wav recording before conversion to telephony format Convert to telephony format as the last step in the process All the above may seem complicated but we only discussed it so you would understand the various parameters that can affect the quality of a recorded or converted message The reality is that in general you can obtain excellent telephony quality prompts if you follow a few simple guidelines e Record the originals as 16 bit wav files at 22 KHz or higher e Make sure your original recordings are spotless good intelligibility good s
163. ou may permanently transfer all of your rights under this EULA provided you retain no copies you transfer all of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT including all component parts the License ID and License Key the media and printed materials any upgrades this EULA and if applicable any Unlock Key and or Certificate of Authenticity and provided the recipient agrees to the terms of this EULA If the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is an upgrade any transfer must include all prior versions of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT in your possession As a reseller you must keep track of all License ID s or Serial Numbers sold by you to third parties with the SOFTWARE PRODUCT license in order to allow full tracking of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT at any time Xentec will request disclosure of such information whenever unauthorized use of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is detected or presumed While keeping track of License IDs upon software transfer is mandatory you may not keep track or copies of License Keys or other unlocking keys or codes e Termination Without prejudice to any other rights Xentec may terminate this EULA if you fail to comply with the terms and conditions of this EULA In such event you must destroy all copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT and all of its component parts including License ID s and License Keys 3 UPGRADES If the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is labeled as an upgrade you must be properly licensed to use a product identified by Xentec as being eligible for the upgrade in order to use the
164. our files for DTMF Vox Studio provides for selection of weak medium or strong DTMF filtering Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 16 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 4 Installation Read the following system requirements and setup procedures before installing Vox Studio on your PC Program set up Program removal System requirements 4 1 Program Setup As well as installing the software with the supplied setup program you should also create a custom working environment for Vox Studio so that you can work efficiently Source and target directories should be created for your files and your program preferences should be set using the Defaults menu Install the program Create working directories Set program defaults Entering your license information Print and return registration form 4 1 1 Install the program Insert your CD in the CD player and close the CD tray The setup program should start automatically If it does not because your PC settings are inhibiting this just start the setup program in the root directory on the CD If you downloaded Vox Studio from a web site or received it by e mail just double click on the downloaded file to start installation If you did get Vox Studio as zip archive you should double click the file setup exe to start installation The installation process copies all necessary files to the Vox Studio folder of your choice Additional sample files may be left on the installation disc for you t
165. phony files at 6 or 8 KHz on your sound card the quality at low sampling rates is extremely important If you hear superimposed distortion that follows the rhythm of the recorded speech you may be hearing aliasing problems Good products incorporate anti aliasing filters that work at low frequencies too cheap clones and some famous products don t e A sound card is not a must You can play files back over a voice processing telephony card using your standard telephony software with your own voice processing application Select a card that can do 16 bit recording and playback and do it well from 6 to 64 KHz The 8 bit cards although usable naturally introduce more quantization noise and are often of lesser quality They will never give you good results and should be avoided Of course we are talking about the resolution of the recordings here not about the complexity of the wave tables used to generate synthetic music e The better cards have lower idle channel noise levels and pick up less stray noise from the PC itself Some products are so bad that you record hissing noises when the PC s mouse is moved around the desk This is very simple to test with Vox Studio Mute your microphone input and start recording from that input Then watch the recorded silence in Vox Studio in dB mode right click on the waveform and select Vertical Scale dB If you see anything at all above 90dB your card does not produce pure silence it probably does not
166. pt nr 1 0 000 0 200 0 400 0 600 0 800 NMS YOX 32K ADPCM prompt 1 Mono 8000 Hz 8800 samples 1 Sec 100 44 Hotel vox iof x C Woxtudiol OXFILES Hotel vox 0 000 5 000 10 000 15 000 20 000 Dialogic 4 law Mono 8000 Hz 217747 samples 27 Sec 218 After a tile horizontally command all windows will be positioned neatly one above the other in the graph pane so that all of them will be fully visible As a result tiled windows will typically be smaller than cascaded windows where only the topmost window is fully visible this is especially true if you have many windows 5 8 3 Tile Vertically 42 Intro vox PT ES m Hotel vox Of xi C Woxtudio Proprietary Formats NMSYr CYYoxtudioWOXFILESWHotel ox 0 0012000 4000 6000 800 sec RI ES NMS VOX 32K ADPCM prompt 1 Monc Dialogic 4 law Mono 8000 Hz 21774 After a tile vertically command all windows will be positioned neatly next to one another in the graph pane so that all of them will be fully visible As a result tiled windows will typically be smaller than cascaded windows where only the topmost window is fully visible this is especially true if you have many windows Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 96 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 9 Help menu This menu provides on line help about Vox Studio It is also here that you can look up how to obtain direct support web support or how to register your copy of Vox Studio Contents Search L
167. r recordings Never go to the next step until the previous step yields perfect results Never try to correct imperfect master recordings later using filtering normalization or other conversion manipulations Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 117 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 7 4 Conversion and quality Converting files from one format to another does not affect sound quality if all that changes is the data recording format Compression companding and sample rate changes of digitized data are subject to the laws of physics and do cause a slight or sometimes drastic alteration in sound quality First you have the expected degradation resulting from the target sample rate conversion itself When you down convert the sample rate of a file you always lose quality because you lose information These are the laws of physics and we have to accept them The resulting quality is not much different than what the file would have been if it were recorded directly at the lower sample rate or resolution For example converting a hi fi 16 bit linear wav file at 44 KHz into a 4 bit ADPCM file at 6 KHz does cause a very noticeable and unavoidable degradation in sound quality This is because a 44 KHz sampled signal can contain components up to a frequency of 22 KHz while a 6 KHz signal can only contain components up to 3 KHZ In effect you are going from a hi fi quality signal to a low telephone quality signal Also only 4 bits now represent your origi
168. r signal peaks sometimes and briefly we mean briefly hits the ceiling or the floor This usually will happen for utterances with T P and K where a little clipping does not matter so much You should select a preferred normalization factor that gives best volume and quality results when played back to the specific telephony card you use Once that is set your settings should usually never change unless you change the target telephony system Remember that the Normalize option is there to correct minor variations between recordings it is not there to correct grossly clipped or grossly under recorded signals You should regularly check if you use nearly the full dynamic range you have available by looking at your recorded messages in the graphical display window Note when Normalize is selected a Center function is in fact performed automatically on the signal prior to amplitude normalization Finally although this functionality is described elsewhere in the chapter describing the calibration tool remember that Vox Studio s dBV or dBm display can be calibrated so that the dB levels you see on screen actually match the dB levels that the same signal will generate on the target telephone line Center around zero automatically re centers the sound file around the zero baseline to eliminate DC offsets caused by your sound card and possibly by very low frequency interference Note when a Normalize command is issued a Center command is in fact perfor
169. rates Snd files usually do not have a header that summarizes the information which Vox Studio needs vap An extension given to indexed voice processing telephony files Vap files contain several concatenated ADPCM recordings and accompanying annotation text vce An extension given to NMS voice processing telephony files This file extension covers a variety of encoding formats Vce files are stand alone files They can be grouped into indexed files which usually carry the vox extension VOX An extension given to many types of voice processing telephony files This file extension covers a variety of encoding and sampling rate formats For example Dialogic vox files are stand alone files and lack a header identifying the coding format and sample rate but NMS vox files actually are indexed files that contain many voice prompts and do have a header We are sorry if this is confusing but we did not create this mess VSN An extension given to many types of voice processing telephony files from several suppliers This generic file extension covers a variety of encoding formats and sampling rates Vsn files do have a header which summarizes most but not all of the information which Vox Studio needs Wa V An extension given to multimedia sound files recorded in Microsoft s standard waveform file format This file extension covers a variety of encoding and sampling rate formats Wav files contain a header identifying the coding format
170. rding meter and adjusting the level to remain below 0 dB most of the time green area lights but allowing some very short spikes to exceed 0 dB red area lights briefly The best practical approach is to calibrate your Vox Studio recording and playback setup once and for all by fine tuning your recording settings You can use the monitor function and the graphical display function to do that Your signal should go from time to time in the red range on the Monitor VU meter and should use at least 75 of the available amplitude range shown on the graphical waveform display screen It does not matter too much if your signal peaks sometimes and briefly we mean briefly hits the ceiling or the floor This usually will happen for utterances with T P and K where a little clipping does not matter so much You should select a preferred normalization factor that gives best volume and quality results when played back to the specific telephony card you use Once that is set your settings should usually never change unless you change the target telephony system Remember that the Normalize option is there to correct minor variations between recordings it is not there to correct grossly clipped or grossly under recorded signals You should regularly check if you use nearly the full dynamic range you have available by looking at your recorded messages in the graphical display window Note when Normalize is selected a Center function is in fact performed automatical
171. rding to the Nyquist theorem the highest frequency component in any sampled file cannot exceed 1 2 the frequency at which the file is sampled Audible aliasing errors occur whenever the Nyquist theorem is overlooked It makes little sense to select a cutoff frequency above 1 2 the sampling frequency of the file e DTMF filter removes signal components at and near the frequencies that correspond to one group of the DTMF frequencies This harsh treatment effectively removes talk off problems but also degrades the sound quality somewhat Use this only on files that really do cause talk off problems and cannot be rerecorded The DTMF filter has 3 strengths you can choose from weak attenuates 10 dB medium attenuates 20 dB and strong attenuates 30 dB Use the weakest filter that solves your talk off problem The Transform Active command can also be activated by clicking on Ga in the toolbar section Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 51 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 6 2 Convert Active This command is similar to the previous Transform Active command except that it immediately saves a converted file to disk You can convert from any format known to Vox Studio to any other format known to Vox Studio You can do up sampling conversions and down sampling conversions See File Formats for an enumeration of all the formats Vox Studio currently handles You can do file conversions in Vox Studio without any sound card installed on your system Of cou
172. rds and drivers installed in a system this is where you select which ones Vox Studio should use Vox Studio also shows you the capabilities of your sound card and driver here this is useful for diagnostics You can individually select which device to use for input and which for output You will not be able to record or play any file with Vox Studio until you have selected an installed sound input and output device You can however use Vox Studio to do conversions only without an input or output sound device Record Playback m Device Sound Mapper v m Capabilities Hz Sbits 16bits Hz Sbits 16bits Hz Bbits 16 bits 6000 Yes Yes 11025 Yes Yes 32000 Yes Yes 6053 Yes Yes 16000 Yes Yes 34600 Yes Yes 7200 Yes Yes 22050 Yes Yes 44100 Yes Yes 8000 Yes Yes 24000 Yes Yes 48000 Yes Yes 8117 Yes Yes 31200 Yes Yes 64000 Yes Yes Save as default Help Cancel If you have the Microsoft Sound Mapper installed it is just software usually installed by default with Windows sound support it may be a good idea to select it because Sound Mapper allows you to play 16 bit files even if your sound card is only an 8 bit card Naturally you will obtain better results with a Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 94 Vox Studio 3 User Guide real 16 bit sound card You can also play stereo files on mono systems Vox Studio can play and accept stereo input files but of course alw
173. rectories that will hold the sound files and telephony voice files you are going to use in Vox Studio If you activate follow changes then whenever you navigate to another directory in Vox Studio this new directory will become the temporary default If you activate save on exit your directory changes will be saved when exiting Vox Studio and become the new permanent defaults This command also allows selection of the usual filename extension s for opening or for saving the telephony voice files used by your specific voice applications There is a separate input box for the default file name extension when saving telephony files You can only enter one default extension for saving telephony files but you can have several extensions for opening files Enter the 3 letter extension s separated by semicolons and no blanks for instance vox vce vsn sd2 snd These extensions will be used when listing telephony files in selection boxes If you want files without any extension just enter a semicolon Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 81 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 7 13 4 Play a List of Files defaults Play a list of files defaults NOmStanaera Sar Use this to select the format presented by default when playing a list of files in the Tools Play a list of files command and in what folder to look for them by default If you select your most frequently used format and location here you will have less navigation work to do wh
174. res Installation shows how to set up the program Menus and commands is a complete program reference File Formats details supported file types Tips and techniques useful tricks and advice Support section your license and tech support Glossary terminology We strongly suggest you read the complete user guide before attempting to use the program This will spare you and us unnecessary correspondence about information readily available in this documentation If you find this documentation to be incomplete or inaccurate by all means let us know and we will improve it For additional information and the latest news on Vox Studio point your web browser to the Xentec website at http www xentec be and visit the Vox Studio pages Vox Studio by Xentec is a Copyright of Xentec nv sa 2001 All rights reserved 1 1 Available documentation formats The Vox Studio user guide is available both as an on disk help file Vox Studio 3 chm in compiled HTML format and as an on disk manual VS3Manual pdf in PDF portable document format Both contain exactly the same information The chm help file is best suited for on line consultation while the pdf file is intended to be printed to your printer for off line reading as a printed manual The printable version is directly derived from the help file and may therefore be rather repetitious To view and print the pdf file you will need to have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed The PDF file fo
175. resolution and sample rate Wav files are to sound what Tiff files are to images AC Alternating current ADPCM Adaptive differential pulse code modulation A speech encoding method based on storing only the difference between consecutive speech samples A law The PCM companding standard used in Europe Algorithm Series of well defined steps or computer instructions to process a signal Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 128 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Aliasing A problem causing spurious components in the signal lt occurs when a signal is sampled at a rate lower than twice the highest frequency present in the signal This results in artifacts at a frequency which is the difference between these highest frequencies and half of the sample rate AM Amplitude modulation The encoding of information by varying a carrier signal s amplitude Amplitude Distance between high and low points of a signal wave There is a direct relationship between waveform amplitude and perceived sound volume ASCII American standard code for information interchange Audio Signals composed of frequencies detected by the human ear e between 20 Hz and 18 000 Hz Audio signals transmitted over the telephone network only contain frequencies from 300 to about 3400 Hz Audiotex Voice response service Dial a number hear the weather forecast Batch Method whereby many files are processed automatically one by one without operator intervention
176. rformed per second According to the Nyquist theorem the highest frequency component in any sound file cannot exceed 1 2 the frequency at which the file is sampled So when a file is down sampled resampled at a lower sampling rate Vox Studio automatically filters the file to remove the components above 1 2 the sampling frequency before doing the resampling Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 52 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Naturally when a file is up sampled resampled at a higher sampling rate there is no way Vox Studio can add frequency components that are not present in the file or have been removed by previous down sampling In other words down sampling will necessarily result in a file with a lower bandwidth but up sampling will not increase the file s frequency content Thus when you do a down sampling followed by a reverse up sampling the resulting file will not be the original If that is the intent you should reload the original file from disk instead Downsampling irremediably deteriorates a file and should always be the last thing you do to a file You can select any of the standard telephony or multimedia sample rates from a list but you can also input a custom non standard sample rate if you need to While converting you can also adjust leading and trailing silence improve intelligibility normalize the sound amplitude or filter the sound These options can be selected using the tabbed section of the dialog box T
177. rim leaders and trailers allows easy production of prompt files with uniform leading and trailing blanks What used to be a time consuming manual editing task has now become as easy as selecting a button with your mouse The rest is done for you automatically Automatic silence adjustment is a threshold activated process and thus requires spotless clean recordings If you have background noise in your recordings Vox Studio may incorrectly detect the beginning and end of sound in your file The dialog box allows you to select the threshold level Vox Studio uses to detect the difference between silence and non silence The current file will be scanned for sound level and Vox Studio will automatically detect the beginning and end of sound in the file based on the threshold you selected It will then adjust the length of leading and trailing silence to a fixed number of milliseconds which can be the same for all your files The threshold level can be set either as a percentage of the maximum on screen amplitude or as a threshold value in dB dBm or dBV The silence duration itself is defined in the Tools Defaults Convert Active menu A reasonable typical value would be 300 milliseconds Note that the Leader Trailer option is actually capable of adding silence to your file if you request more leading or trailing silence than your file actually contains If the voice files you are trimming are not recorded in optimal conditions it may be very useful to p
178. rmat has become a widely accepted standard format for information distribution It works on most computer platforms Most systems therefore already have this installed nowadays If you do not yet have Acrobat Reader you can obtained a free reader from the following website http www adobe com or select a special version for your country or language directly from here http Awww adobe com products acrobat alternate html You probably already have all you need to view the chm help file in compiled HTML format You need to have Internet Explorer version 4 01 or later installed on your computer this is needed anyway to run Vox Studio 3 You do not have to be using IE though If you have Windows 98 Me or 2000 you already have all the required files installed If you only have Windows 95 or NT4 but have Microsoft Office 2000 installed you also already have all you need to view chm files the latest Microsoft help files also come in this format As a result chm files can be viewed on most newer Windows installations Please note that the chm format has been announced as the future format for all Microsoft help files and your time invested in updating your system is not likely to be wasted unless you plan to move away from Windows There is an interesting article on the Microsoft web site What Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 5 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Is the Minimal Internet Explorer Installation for HTML Help If you st
179. rminate the program session Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 32 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 2 1 New This command creates a new untitled workspace to edit or record into The first question that is asked is the sample frequency you want to use New prompt sample frequency Sample frequency eooo Hz y Non standard Sanple rate Cancel Select one of the standard frequencies suggested or enter your own custom sample frequency A new but empty and untitled graph window is then created in the graph pane You can now paste sound generate DTMF or record sound into this area The empty and unused sound window looks like this Untitled A E C WYINDOVYS Desktop Untitled 16 bits linear PCM Mono 8000 Hz O samples 0 Sec 000 The New command can also be activated by clicking on in the toolbar section 5 2 2 Open This command loads one or more files in Vox Studio lt opens a dialog box from which you can browse to and select the files you want to load Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 33 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Look in Y ver Fonce ej al c W Austria wav Yi Sweden way hh Catalan waw Italy wav 4 Test wav France way Y Jingle wav E Warning txt Norge wav W Gb_frwav 4 Peugeot waw 4 German wav 43 Spanish wav 4 Hotel wav File name Norge wav France wav Italy wav Catala Files of type an files C
180. rse you will need a sound card to record or play the files on your PC before or after conversion Convert active Ed Convert from Convert to Sound family Sound family windows wave Dialogic z Sound type Sound type fi 6 bits linear aD PCM Sampling frequency Sampling frequency 22050 Hz e000 Hz y Non standards ampe rate Save the converted prompt to Jc windows desktop test vox Browse Leader Trailer Normalize Intelligibility Filter 26 02 dB to 5 00 ZAMS l leader 300 msec Ti trailer 300 msec 26 02 dBY Help Cancel All the default values to this dialog box can be preset using the Tools Defaults menu Convert from there is nothing to select here the conversion source file is the currently loaded and active voice file Convert to you always have to fully describe the sound family and sound type you want to convert to Vox Studio cannot guess this If you don t feel like entering this every time you can preset this as a default using the Tools Defaults menu You do not need to describe the format from which you want to convert as by definition the current file already has been loaded into Vox Studio and therefore the program will already have retrieved the information it needs at file loading time The sampling frequency can modify the sample rate of the file i e the number of signal measurements pe
181. rting a recording you should define the sampling rate 6 to 48 KHz of the sound you wish to record If an active window exists the recording will be inserted in the active file If no active window exists Vox Studio will ask you what sample rate you want to use and will the create a new empty window for you A sample rate of 11 or 22 KHz is usually a good compromise between quality and disk space Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 72 Vox Studio 3 User Guide After recording a prompt you can immediately play it back edit it or save it in the format of your choice As the save operation allows you to define file coding sample rate and resolution you can thus convert your recording into any telephony format known to Vox Studio Once a prompt is saved Vox Studio is ready for a new recording 5 7 11 Play a list of files This command opens a selection Dialog box Choose the format of the files to be played they should all be in the same format Use the browse button to select in the sequence in which you want them played all the files that need to be played The usual Windows shortcuts of Click Shift Click Ctrl Click can be used to select a range of files or separate individual files You can also type wild characters in the browsing window to select all files in a folder The maximum number of files that can be selected and played with a single Play a list of files command depends on the length of the file names the tota
182. s above but has a RIFF standard file header instead of just raw data One more sample frequency is provided 11 025 KHz Mu law and Mu law Wav The US and Japanese digital telephone networks use a companding algorithm operating on a segmented straight lines approximation to a logarithmic curve called the Mu law digital coding standard Per channel Mu law companders produce 8 bits of companded data per 16 bit sample at a sample rate of 8 KHz This is also called 64 KBps Mu law PCM This is the coding algorithm used in the Bell System throughout the US In Europe a similar algorithm called A law is used Telephony cards capable of recording and playing 64 KBps data produce very good quality voice In fact you cannot get any better on the current analog telephone network Of course 64 KBps PCM data requires more hard disk space than 24 KBps or 32 KBps ADPCM data but the voice quality is better Mu law companding produces a lower idle channel noise than A law but A law has a better signal to noise ratio at low voice amplitudes Although the normal sample rate for Mu law telephony is 8 KHz most Dialogic cards allow using Mu law at 6KHz as well and Vox Studio supports this Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 107 Vox Studio 3 User Guide The Dialogic Mu law wav format uses the same coding as above but has a RIFF standard file header instead of just raw data One more sample frequency is provided 11 025 KHz 6 2 5 Elan Informat
183. s the default value for use in later sessions of Vox Studio Input Format defaults Output Format defaults Folder defaults Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 78 Play a List of Files defaults Convert Transform Active defaults Batch Conversion defaults Prompter defaults Tape Loader defaults File Slicer defaults Group and Ungroup Dialogic defaults Group and Ungroup NMS defaults dBV and dBm Calibration DTMF defaults 5 7 13 1 Input Format defaults Prompt input format Format Sound family Nortel Sound type wil be read from file y Sampling frequency wii be read from file y Won standard sample fate New prompt Sampling frequency e000 Hz y Non standard sample rater Help Save as default a Cancel Vox Studio 3 User Guide This command allows selection of the default source conversion format and file open format This is the source format that will originally be selected in the dialog boxes associated with file conversion or file open operations Vox Studio does detect the input format if the necessary information is in the file header otherwise it presents the format entered here as the default in Dialog boxes If you plan to manipulate many files all in the same format it makes a lot of sense to select this format here as the default If you do not you will need more manual intervention when you use Vox Studio Selecting the right default here will ma
184. s usually used for NMS indexed files while the stand alone voice files often have the vce extension Specify the default coding and sample rate to be used for indexed files Specify the default maximum number of prompts per indexed file header space for that many files will be reserved in the file Choose this number somewhat larger than the largest number of prompts you typically have in an indexed file Select the default directory where the separate prompt files typically reside Specify the default format family coding and sample rate to be used for the separate prompt files Select the default directory where the script files typically reside and the script file extension usually txt Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 91 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 7 13 12 dBV and dBm Calibration dBY dBm Calibration Description Please read carefully Sound format Vox Studio defines its internal O dB or 100 p p power Sound family level as the power of a pure 800 Hz sinewave with ITU CCITT maximum on screen peak to peak amplitude How much electric power ultimately ends up on your Sound type phone line depends on the electronic gain of the telephony card you use ox Studio does not know this 6 711 Mu law y gain until you perform the following calibration After calibration the dB or dBm levels shown in Vox Sampling frequency Studio will correspond to the real dB or dBm levels on e000 Hz y your phy
185. ser interface cccccccccncnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnncnncnnnnnnos 25 Using toolbar buttons and mouse clicks 99 Vap file to standalone conversion 61 View less details ooooooconininininininnncnncccananono 41 VIEW MENU eee ceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeess 40 View more details cccccccccceceeeeeeeseeeeeees 41 View the whole fil ccccceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 41 Viewing the input signal ceeeeee 67 Visualizing the sound fileS cceeeeee 12 Voice talent requirement ccccceeeeees 24 Voicetek Generations formatS 113 Volume control for record amp playback 115 Volume normalization cccccceeeeeeeeeeeeees 14 Wave file formats ccccccccccccceeeeeeeeeeeeees 113 Waveform display functionality 12 Window maximized and minimized 28 Window MENU cccccecccecececeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeess 95 Windows limits for ZOOMING 22 0 eeeee 40 Windows requirement eeeeeeeeeeeeeees 21 Windows wav formal ccccccccceeseeeeeeees 113 Workspace iia 25 ZOOM lit AA 41 ZOOM it EEE AAA 41 ZOOM DU ads 41 ZOOMING in ANC out 31 Page 135
186. sical phone line Dae F Gnstanderd Ssaniple rate The calibration procedure requires four steps 1 Select either a dB or a dBm scale by checking the See ea ee appropriate button to the right Save calibration file as Browse 2 Generate an 800 Hz sinewave calibration file of known C Voxtudio VOXFILES dbCalib vox power 0 dB in a file format that your telephony system can handle To do so simply choose the proper Sound format to the right and then press Generate Generate 3 Play this calibration file to the phone line through your telephony system While the file plays use an RMS Calibration voltmeter to measure the AC voltage present on the line C dBV scale 4 Enter the measured AC voltage in the field to the right ei g Measured AC voltage 0 707 VRMS of this text and press OK The Yox Studio dBY and i ale dBm scales are now correct for this telephony system and phone line Help Cancel This command allows precise calibration of your dBm and dBV displays and settings The procedure outlined above on the left of the dialog box should be followed each time voice prompts have to be prepared for a different hardware platform with different electrical levels on the phone line from the same digital file In other words this procedure calibrates Vox Studio to the electrical characteristics of the hardware on which the voice files will be used Once this calibration is done the d
187. sion must be entered in the script file Alternatively you can have Vox Studio generate the filenames automatically The computed filenames will consist of a fixed radix root and a variable incremented digital tail suffix The counting can be decimal or hexadecimal as preferred If you don t know what hexadecimal notation is just select decimal For example if the starting filename template s radix is ivrsys and the trailing counter is 00 then filenames from ivrsys00 wav to ivrsys99 wav can be generated If the starting radix is ivr and the trailing number is 1087 then filenames from ivr1087 wav to ivr9999 wav will be generated If you have selected to automatically generate filenames then the default filename prefix and suffix will be proposed at the top of the window and you can modify it there if you want The next step is to decide how the file slicer is going to detect the separation between recorded Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 47 Vox Studio 3 User Guide messages You can have Vox Studio do this for you by detecting a predefined and settable number of seconds of silence It would be a good idea to have 3 to 5 seconds of silence as a delimiter on your recordings Of course you will have to direct the recording studio to do that for you You can also select what length of silence represents the end of all tape recordings This should be much longer than the longest separation on the tape Finally you can also set t
188. sion 4 01 of Internet Explorer installed If not IE can easily be dowloaded and installed from many web sites May we suggest you install IE 5 5 or later All you need is a minimum installation It does not have to be your main browser neither do you need a web browser you just need the operating system functionality that comes with IE 4 01 and later 4 3 2 CPU and speed Most of Vox Studio s algorithms are tuned for accuracy and speed Vox Studio does a huge number of calculations tens of millions for every conversion or filter operation This is done using the PC s CPU No additional hardware is required Vox Studio really shines by the quality of its conversions and by the amazing speed at which they are performed A 100MHz Pentium is probably the lowest acceptable platform for Vox Studio off line conversions but it is the bare minimum and may be too slow for real time operations on file types that require complex algorithms Of course the faster your PC the better A 400 MHz Pentium or better is the ideal platform for Vox Studio to really fly Vox Studio is so optimized that most filtering operations are performed faster than real time If your PC is very slow you will still be perfectly able to perform any conversion you want You may however hear pauses jerky interruptions when playing back some telephony format files on that PC s sound card This is simply because Vox Studio decompresses the encoded files on the fly and Copyri
189. sit back and relax while Vox Studio does the dirty work for you 3 12 Silence trimming functionality Voice processing professionals often use a voice editor to manually add or remove periods of silence at the beginning and end of their recordings This is usually a time consuming and boring trial and error activity If you have to do this on thousands of files it is a nightmare Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 14 Vox Studio 3 User Guide You can completely automate this repetitive task with the help of Vox Studio Simply select a default length for leading and trailing silence in the program defaults and give a single command to apply it to all your prompts Vox Studio does all the work for you This works on multiple files in batch mode too You can do this on thousands of files in one go Automatic silence adjustment is a threshold activated process and naturally requires very clean recordings 3 13 Intelligibility enhancement functionality The Intelligibility Filter capability consists of a Clarity filter which corrects the muffled sound effect obtained when down sampling voice files and a Boost option which produces variable signal amplification in order to increase the perceived voice volume energy content of recorded files The Intelligibility Filter is an option which can be selected while doing any of the conversion operations The Intelligibility Filter parameters can be set in the program defaults A wea
190. t Samples Properties v Time You can display or hide the horizontal tick marks and values and you can opt for a display of samples or time units Window Horizontal Scale gt Vertical Scale RS Scale Properties Y Zpp dB dB You can display or hide the vertical tick marks and values and you can opt for a display in peak to peak dB and dBV or dBm if dBm is what you selected in Tools Defaults dBV dBm Calibration Selecting Window is the equivalent of the View Window menu command Selecting Properties is the equivalent of the File Properties command 5 10 4 Keyboard shortcuts e Editing shortcuts The editing shortcuts are the usual shortcuts found in most Windows programs Ctrl x Cut selected sound to internal clipboard Ctrl c Copy selected sound to internal clipboard Ctrl v Paste internal clipboard into sound at cursor position or at end of sound Ctrl z Undo the last operation Ctrl a Selects all the entire sound Delete Deletes the selected sound e Player and Recorder shortcuts Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 101 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Starts playback Starts recording Stops playback or recording in recorder Pauses playback or recording in recorder pace The Space Bar alternatively starts or stops playback in the main window Nn n e Prompter and Tape Loader shortcuts Space The Space Bar alternatively starts or stops recording in the Prompter an
191. t Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 15 Vox Studio 3 User Guide pauses is settable in the program defaults 3 16 DTMF detection functionality Complex DTMF touch tone sequences of various lengihs can be detected in sound files The DTMF digits O to 9 A to D and and are all detected The threshold amplitude minimum duration and maximum gap lentgth are settable in the program defaults 3 17 DTMF filtering functionality Some recorded files with human voice or music can repeatedly cause voice processing hardware to erroneously recognize DTMF sounds on the telephone line This is called talk off What happens in fact is that the voice of the speaker or the music being played contains pairs of frequencies very similar to the DTMF frequencies generated by telephone keypads This typically happens only once in a while and only on a small number of files Vox Studio can fix this for you by removing the DTMF frequencies from your sound file One pass through Vox Studio s DTMF attenuator usually fixes this Of course removing sound at various places in the frequency spectrum does affect sound quality somewhat So use this only when you need it and only on the files that need it We would advise you to experiment with this function before you start using it on a live system Vox Studio s DTMF detection capability allows automatic flagging of files that may contain such erroneous DTMF tones There is absolutely no justification to filter all y
192. t 100 That s simply because human voice is neither steady nor a pure sine wave On a pure steady sine wave a Vox Studio normalization to 100 will produce Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 57 Vox Studio 3 User Guide a signal that just reaches the floor and the ceiling of the display As a result if you have recorded speech and you select a maximum average level of energy of say 70 in the Normalize command you can get sound spikes whose amplitude will very briefly be clipped at 100 For voice recordings this happens on very short sounds like T P and K which are explosive sounds anyway and where amplitude saturation does not matter very much This technique allows recording atas high a level as possible with best possible telephony quality A similar technique is used when recording with a recording device that has a recording meter and adjusting the level to remain below 0 dB most of the time green area lights but allowing some very short spikes to exceed 0 dB red area lights briefly The best practical approach is to calibrate your Vox Studio recording and playback setup once and for all by fine tuning your recording settings You can use the monitor function and the graphical display function to do that Your signal should go from time to time in the red range on the Monitor VU meter and should use at least 75 of the available amplitude range shown on the graphical waveform display screen It does not matter too much if you
193. tudio does not automatically perform a centering operation before every leader trailer but you may select this option You can perform a quick visual check using the graphical waveform display in the main window Record a file with nothing but silence using your onboard sound card Save the file and then reload it into Vox Studio You should see a clean horizontal line exactly superimposed on the zero baseline If you see two lines your hardware does generate significant offset If you see only one line the offset generated is small enough that you can disregard it If you see green rubbish grass on the base line your recording setup picks up unwanted noise which you will certainly hear in the final recording If you manipulate files that were recorded on another workstation it is a good idea to load the files first and visually check them for a possible DC shift DC offsets are very disturbing whenever you need to amplify a signal or do threshold detection Also too much DC offset can generate audible clicks at the beginning and end of a file Intelligibility filter consists of a Clarity filter which corrects the muffled sound effect often obtained when down sampling voice files and a Boost option which produces variable signal amplification in order to increase the perceived voice energy content of the recorded file The Intelligibility filter can be selected only while doing a Convert Active Convert Current or a Batch Conversion operation I
194. tudios so you will have to compromise Avoid large rooms without furniture and with glass windows glass absorbs low frequencies and reflects high frequencies If you have glass windows use curtains to absorb reflections Avoid unfurnished rooms with wall to wall carpeting and drapes over the walls these only absorb the higher frequencies Echo is something that is very disturbing and should be avoided by all means The larger the room the larger the echo risk In the selection process for a studio room it is a very good idea to clap loudly with your hands and listen for sound decay and possible echoes Move around in the room and clap your hands to determine how this changes the room response and where the best location is Your colleagues may think you have gone nuts but ignore them This may seem strange but square or rectangular rooms with flat ceilings are the worst because standing acoustic waves are created in all three dimensions asymmetrical rooms with sloping walls and furniture are better because standing waves are less likely to be created In conclusion you are unlikely to find a perfect studio room in your office so establish your recording microphone in a well furnished preferably asymmetrical mid sized room where a clap with the hands decays in less than half a second use a directional microphone and forget about the rest The spatial impression and richness of a recording depend on the location of both the microphone and the sp
195. und noises or hissing don t Record at reasonable levels You must absolutely avoid compensating for low level recordings by pumping the gain up at a later stage in the process Avoid saturation while recording except perhaps for very brief peaks Use the keyboard gently so as not to record clicks If you move a mouse on the desk that carries the microphone use a good mouse pad Do not locate the keyboard on the desk that carries the microphone or do use a thick sound absorbing mat Avoid kicking the recording table An office chair on wheels can generate noise when you move Chairs with springs and floppy armrests can be pretty bad at making noises too Test this One procedure to obtain good quality telephony prompts there are many variations would be to use a sound card and Vox Studio to record the prompts as wav files at say 16 bits and 22 KHz then use Vox Studio to convert those files to one of the telephony types for instance A law at 8 KHz Avoid recording directly to 8 bit resolution files If you cannot follow the above guidelines have a professional studio record the wav files for you or have them record a tape DAT mini disc or Audio CD and use the Vox Studio Tape Loader to digitize their recording and convert the files to telephony formats and sample frequencies Always test the quality of your master files before proceeding to convert them Be patient and start over until you are absolutely proud of your original maste
196. urations and special drivers but we really do not expect problems 4 3 5 Disk space Disk space is an important requirement for Vox Studio to run satisfactorily Although Vox Studio will warn you when it cannot continue due to low disk space it is good practice to always check your available hard disk space before starting a lengthy recording project or conversion session Naturally for conversions Vox Studio needs enough free disk space to store the original voice files and the conversion results plus some temporary scratchpad files This does NOT mean twice the size of the original files It all depends on the sampling rate and format used Remember that 16 bit files at 44 1 KHz take up 30 times more disk space than the same prompt in 6 KHz ADPCM format It is up to you to make sure there is enough space available on the hard disk used Vox Studio uses your Temp directory as a scratchpad area It is therefore important that this temp directory resides on the local disc partition with the largest amount of free space and that there is enough free space on it to hold all the work files and temporary files Remember the hard disk partition that hosts your system s Temp folder may not be the same as your working partition Vox Studio uses the standard Temp of Windows or the folder you have selected in Tools Options System If you want to find out what the standard Windows Temp is just open this dialog box in Copyright Xentec nv 1996
197. us bar at the bottom of the main window lt tells you what Vox Studio is busy doing and also gives useful information on the cursor position in a file while you view or edit a file All commands and dialog box selections are normally executed by clicking the left mouse button but they can also be given from the keyboard Each menu command or dialog box selection is shown on screen with one of the characters underlined The underlined character is the keyboard shortcut for that command Note to program developers all file conversion commands can also be given from external programs using the command line API or a conversion DLL API Contact Xentec for detailed programming information 5 1 2 Minimizing Maximizing Closing The traditional window control buttons minimize maximize restore and close look like this they are located in the top right corner of a window and they allow you to change the size of the graphical waveform windows shown in the graph pane A normal window looks roughly like this Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 28 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 44 Demo wav CWoxtudioWWAYFILESIGM Yoices Demo way 0 000 1 000 2 000 3 000 4 000 16 hits linear Wave Mono 22050 Hz 109712 samples 4 Sec 976 If you minimize a graph window it becomes tiny and hides at the bottom of the graph pane but you can move it around and it takes no more space than this DAA EJE EG If instead you maximize a graph window it wi
198. ut you can also input a custom nonstandard sample rate if you need to e Trim leaders and trailers sets the defaults for trimming leading and trailing blanks The dialog box allows you to select the threshold level Vox Studio uses to detect the difference between silence and non silence The threshold level can be set as either a percentage of the maximum on screen amplitude or as a threshold value in dB dBm or dBV Don t set the threshold lower than your background noise level or nothing will work The default silence duration itself is also defined here A reasonable typical value would be 300 milliseconds e Normalize sound volume sets the default maximum sound energy for normalization The selection can be done in of the maximum on screen amplitude in dB or in dBm dBV Vox Studio does not measure peak AMPLITUDE it measures peak ENERGY over a duration of several milliseconds Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 83 Vox Studio 3 User Guide about the duration of a spoken syllable Usually a choice of about 65 of maximum energy will be fine Remember that you can also enter values in decibels and that Vox Studio s dBV or dBm display can be calibrated Center around zero if this is set here then centering will be activated by default in the conversion dialog boxes Disable it here if you usually will not use this feature Intelligibility filter if this is selected here then the Intelligibility Filter option will be a
199. xtudio S 300beta DE vox VCE 32K NMS ADPCM VOX indexed Europe 8000 Hz 8000 Hz Non stanuara sample Optionally a script file can be produced for seamless regrouping of the stand alone components after manipulation 5 7 Tools menu This menu hosts the commands to record a single file play a whole bunch of files set the recording sensitivity generate strings of DTMF digits and access other external programs Generate tones Detect tones Monitor Sound Input Play Record Play a list Program options Program defaults Sound devices 5 7 1 Generate Vox Studio currently generates DTMF tones only Other telephony tones will be added in future versions Generate DTMF Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 65 Vox Studio 3 User Guide 5 7 1 1 Generate DTMF The DTMF tone generator has the appearance of a telephone keypad DTHF tone generation PIESEI EELEE BEE Pause 00 3227570777 Backspace Heg i You can enter a DTMF sequence using all 16 DTMF tone pairs including the A B C D codes Simply clicking on the corresponding keys on screen generates a tone sequence One can also add pause commands represented in the display by a comma in the DTMF sequence The tones will be inserted at the current cursor position in the active file If no file was active in Vox Studio when this command was selected a new empty prompt will be created to contain the DTMF tones Clear all
200. y Xentec and Xentec support engineers will make commercially reasonable efforts to solve any problem issues To the extent allowed by applicable law implied warranties on the SOFTWARE PRODUCT if any are limited to ninety 90 days CUSTOMER REMEDIES Xentec s and its suppliers entire liability and your exclusive remedy shall be at Xentec s option either a return of the price paid if any or b repair or replacement of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT that does not meet Xentec s Limited Warranty and which is returned to Xentec with a copy of your receipt This Limited Warranty is void if failure of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT has resulted from accident abuse or misapplication Any replacement SOFTWARE PRODUCT will be warranted for the remainder of the original warranty period or thirty 80 days whichever is longer No product support services offered by Xentec are available without proof of purchase from an authorized international source NO OTHER WARRANTIES TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW XENTEC AND ITS SUPPLIERS DISCLAIM ALL OTHER WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE TITLE AND NON INFRINGEMENT WITH REGARD TO THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT AND THE PROVISION OF OR FAILURE TO PROVIDE SUPPORT SERVICES LIMITATION OF LIABILITY TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW IN Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page
201. y of IMA ADPCM voice files is not great the files are portable There is a real advantage in having compact files that can be played on most Windows PCs Copyright Xentec nv 1996 2001 Page 108 Vox Studio 3 User Guide Windows supports IMA ADPCM wav files in 4 bit format only and at sample rates between 8 and 41KHz Vox Studio supports IMA ADPCM wav files in 4 bit or 3 bit format at sample rates from 6KHz to 64KHz 6 2 9 InterVoice formats Vox Studio supports the InterVoice 64K 32K 24K and 16K A law and Mu law ADPCM file formats 6 2 10 Microlog Intela formats The Microlog Intela file formats supported by Vox Studio are formats with a file header The usual extension for Microlog Intela formats is vsn You can select from the following coding types OKI ADPCM at 6 or 8 KHz A law PCM Mu law PCM 6 2 11 Microsoft ADPCM ADPCM stands for Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation ADPCM is a lossy compression mechanism There are various flavors of ADPCM This particular algorithm was suggested by Microsoft its quality is similar to IMA ADPCM MS ADPCM compresses data recorded at various sampling rates Sound is encoded as a succession of 4 bit nibbles Each nibble represents the difference between the current sampled signal value and the previous value The compression ratio obtained is relatively modest 16 bit data samples encoded as 4 bit differences result in 4 1 compression format Microsoft ADPCM is dir
202. you can also set the threshold level Vox Studio is going to use to make the difference between silence and speech or speech and silence You can use a setting in RMS or in decibels Finally select the sample rate of the recorded wav files 6 to 48 KHz and the disk directory where these will be stored 5 5 5 File Slicer This tool is used to cut one large prerecorded wav file into smaller files Silences are used as prompt delimiters File slicer parameters m Prompt format Prompt separation Sound family Windows wave When recording prompts will be separated by Sound pps 16 bite nes detecting a silence longer than 2 000 sec Sampling frequency Will be read from the wave file 5 00 AMS Prompt folder Sound levels below 26 02 dB will be regarded as silences Save prompt files to Browse 26 02 dBy je WOXTUDIONS 300BETA The end of the way file ends slicing m Prompt filenames Read the filenames from a script file co x Select the filenames under which the recorded messages will be saved You can browse to an existing script file in which case the filenames are taken from the script file itself If you don t enter a save to path in the tape loader defaults then the complete path without extension though it is always wav has to be entered in the script file itself If a save to directory is entered in the loader defaults only a filename without exten

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