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| Contents | | Settings/Options | | Tray Menu Options | | Message Editor | |
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Front Panel
Standard self-explanatory commands. Pause works both
with Play and Record. Ctrl-Rec: Holding Ctrl key while clicking on Record button starts Insert recording. With this option you can insert new recordings into existing messages at desired location. It works from Stop, Play and Paused Play modes. Scheduled recordings: You can make scheduled recordings with Audio Notes Recorder but for that to work you need one more program of ours called Smooth Program Scheduler. That program is free to use and available for download from www.xemico.com/scheduler/. For detailed instructions on setting up a scheduled recording please refer to help files in Smooth Program Scheduler.
Brings up standard Open dialog for loading one of previously saved cassettes. Allows you to change sound quality for new (blank) casette. You can choose between five different sampling rates: high, CD, radio, telephone and low. When creating a new cassette file you can choose between 8-bit (lower quality) or 16-bit (higher quality) sampling. Note however that with 16-bit sampling the same length of recording takes double space in a cassette file comparing to 8-bit sampling. Brings up standard Save dialog for creating new digital cassette. Brings up standard Save dialog for creating new analog cassette. Audio Notes Recorder has two operating modes known as cassette types: analog and digital. In digital mode, one cassette can contain several recorded messages and every new click on Record button creates a new message. Thus you can't continue recording at the end of already existing message. On the other hand, in analog mode, every cassette contains or represents only one message. By further clicking on Record button you will be able to continue recording at the end of analog cassette i.e. extend one message many times.
Note: Shortcut key for Settings menu is Alt-S. Send Message Send Message option allows you to send current message by E-Mail as an attachment using your default E-Mail client program. You have six file types to choose from: WAV, MP3, OGG Vorbis, WAV in EXE, MP3 in EXE, OGG Vorbis in EXE. Additional options available in the Export Options dialog that appears first in this process is to lower the sound quality (files are getting smaller that way) and/or apply sound effects. The option for applying sound effects will be available only if you have already enabled some effect(s). Just like Send Message, use this option to send all messages in a single file. Export Message option allows you to export current message to one of six available file types: WAV, MP3, OGG Vorbis, WAV in EXE, MP3 in EXE, OGG Vorbis in EXE. Before the export is done you can choose to break the message in files with maximum length that you set in minutes. For example, if you are exporting a message of 40 minutes and want to break it into 15 minutes files then you will get three files as a result, first two 15 minutes long and the last one with remaining 10 minutes. The Export Options dialog offers two more options, one to lower the sound quality (exported files are getting smaller that way) and the other to apply sound effects on exported file. If your recording was with 16-bit sampling you will also be able to uncheck that box and get a half-size export file with 8-bit sampling. The option for applying sound effects will be available only if you have already enabled some effect(s). Just like Export Message. You can choose to export all messages to a single file or export them as separate files. If you export all messages as separate files, they will be saved with file names in the format "<name> XXX" where XXX is message number, starting from 001 and <name> is the file name you have chosen (e.g. "test 001.wav", "test 002.wav", etc.). Note that the option for breaking messages will be available only if you are exporting all messages as separate files. WAV is the de facto standard
for sound on PCs. It has been developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM
and files with that extension can be played by nearly all Windows
applications that support sound. WAV in EXE is file
special to Audio Notes Recorder. What you get is stand alone executable
(EXE) file containing both a little player and recorded material in WAV
format.
OGG is the file extension for OGG Vorbis compression of audio signals. It is roughly comparable to other formats used to store and play digital music, such as MP3, VQF, AAC, and other digital audio formats. It is different from these other formats because it is completely free, open, and unpatented. If your choice is OGG the following dialog will
appear first:
You can select sound quality and then click OK to
continue. Highest sound quality (10 - hi) means weakest compression and
larger files. Use this option to import either WAV, MP3 or OGG Vorbis sound files. Again, please bear in mind that for working with MP3 files Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer3 (MP3) codec has to be already installed on your computer. Opens window for registering Audio Notes Recorder. Type in your name and registration number and click on OK button to finish the procedure. For more information on how to obtain registration number please go to http://www.xemico.com/anr/register.html. Contact Technical Support This is where you can ask anything you are not clear with. Visit Program Homepage Audio Notes Recorder's Internet homepage. About ANR Opens window with basic information about the program, manufacturer and licence. Opens help index file. By default, this menu option gives you easy access to Windows Volume Controls utilities. Choose Playback to bring up Windows Playback Volume Controls or choose Recording to bring up Windows Recording Volume Controls. In Settings/Options dialog you can enable Audio Notes Recorder's own Volume Controls utility instead. If Audio Notes Recorder's Volume Controls utility is selected you will get access to all sound card volume controls (playback and recording) at one place. Number of available sliders depends solely on the installed driver. However, some drivers could cause problems with this feature, so if you have problems with Audio Notes Recorder's Volume Controls utility you have to switch back to using Windows Volume Controls. Note: Windows Vista users will have three options under Volume Controls: Mixers, Playback Devices and Recording Devices. These will bring up corresponding Vista's dialogs. Audio Notes Recorder's own volume controls utility can not work under Vista so that option is not available in Settings/Options dialog. Loop Message When enabled, Audio Notes Recorder will play a selected message in a continuous loop until you press the Stop button. Transcription Playback Mode This option enables (or disables) the program's unique transcription playback mode. It is designed to make transcribing recorded material easier. With option enabled playback first goes for some time, then it pauses automatically and finally rewinds a little bit to start a new cycle. The idea is to minimize interaction with the program while transcribing. You can adjust all parameters for this mode so with some experimenting you should be able to find the winning combination - in ideal case you would just start the playback once and type everything in a single pass. Opens menu with a selection of skins available for Audio Notes Recorder. More Skins option leads directly to XemiComputers web site where you can find more skins for download. Always on Top If this option is active Audio Notes Recorder's front panel will stay on top of the screen all the time until you deactivate it again or use Off command to minimize the program to systray. Opens info screen that shows maximum recording
time (in minutes) available per cassette for the given quality and
maximum cassette size (in MB). Opens additional Help screen that shows all
available keyboard shortcuts. You can also use F12 key to call up this
screen throughout the program. Availability of some keyboard shortcut
depends on the current working mode so this screen is organized in tabs
accordingly. Echo: repeats sound up to five times (Echoes) with cascading delays from 0 to 2000 milliseconds (Delay) and echoed signal level at 0-100% (Gain). Equalizer: allows you to increase or decrease signal level separately in each of ten available frequency ranges. Flanger: somewhat similar to echo, it doubles the original sound with a delay from 0 to 100 milliseconds (Delay) distorted by chosen frequency base from 0 to 10 Hz (Frequency). Pitch: moves the whole frequency spectrum of the original signal by multiplying it with a chosen value from 0.5 to 2 (Value). You can also set transformation quality parameter from 1 to 50 (Quality). Controls: use this option to bring up the effects dialog where you can change parameters described above. If you are changing parameters during playback click Apply for an immediate effect. NOTE: if you want to set effect parameters back to the initial position click on Default. Opens window for changing different ANR Settings/Options.
Opens message editor for removing unwanted parts of a recording or splitting it in two/three parts. Using this option you will be able to mix two recorded messages into one new message. Just select messages you want to mix, set Mixing balance if necessary and click Ok. Before clicking Ok you can also click Test to hear what you will get as the result. If you are mixing two messages of different lengths then the mixed message length will of course correspond to the longer of the source messages. Deletes current message. (digital cassettes only) Completely deletes (empties) current cassette. All previously recorded material is lost. Opens dialog for changing the file name of the current cassette. Opens dialog for rearranging contents of the
current digital cassette. It gives you the oportunity to move messages
up or down the list, delete more than one at a time, merge two or more
messages into one and save all those changes at once to the current or
brand new cassette. Move Up: Moves selected messages up one place in the list. Move Down: Moves selected messages down one place in the list. Delete: Deletes selected messages. Merge: Merges selected messages by appending them sequentially to the first selected message. Save Changes: Saves all changes to the current cassette. This action can not be undone so be careful for mistakes. If not sure, it would be better to click Cancel and do rearrangements again than to lose some important message. Save As New Cassette: Saves all changes to a brand new cassette. The current cassette stays just like it was before calling Rearrange Cassette dialog. Append to Existing Cassette: Appends all changes to the end of an existing cassette, opens that cassette and positions on the first appended message. The current cassette stays just like it was before calling Rearrange Cassette dialog. If target cassette has a different sampling rate the program will notify you that a sampling rate conversion is necessary before appending can be done. Opens dialog for direct positioning at the start of a message recorded on a digital cassette. (digital cassettes only) Opens dialog for editing current message notation. (digital cassettes only) Selects ticker speed (slow, medium, fast). Selects ticker direction (from right to left, from left to right, or none). When None is selected, the ticker does not scroll.
Pressing Record button in this mode will automatically minimize ANR to systray and start recording by the rules of V.O.R. mode (see below for details). In this mode, the process of recording is completely under your control. Start it by pressing Record button, end it on Stop, or temporarily suspend it on Pause. V.O.R. stands for Voice Operated Recording and means that ANR will record only clear sound coming through the microphone and skip all periods of silence. For this mode to work properly you will have to experiment with settings for Recording Volume and Suppress Microphone Noise Level sliders. Please find these within Settings/Options window.
This option is attached to the time counter. If
you click on it, a small window will open featuring a slider designed
to provide quick access to any part of a recorded message. You can use
a simple click or click and drag technique to operate the slider. Clicking on the current message number brings up the list of all messages recorded on the current digital cassette. Audio Notes Recorder will go directly to the beginning of a selected message.
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| Contents | | Settings/Options | | Tray Menu Options | | Message Editor | |
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