Software tackles tough times with "sound" savings

The high-tech recession shows little sign of abating. Considering that every fiscal move you make will be under unrelenting scrutiny by the bean counters upstairs, consider tapping into—and contributing to—the open-source-software-development community to complete your projects on time and under budget. A quick search of the SourceForge Web site, www.sourceforge.net, reveals more than 1000 audio utilities for diverse operating systems, such as the well-known Audacity and Ardour multitrack audio editors, SoX and SSRC (Shibatch-sample-rate-converter) audio resamplers and converters, LAME (LAME ain't an MP3 encoder) MP3 encoder, MAD (MPEG audio decoder) MP3 decoder, FLAC (free lossless-audio codec), and CDex audio-CD-data extractor. For video, your options include the Nandub and VirtualDub editors; DScaler for deinterlacing; inverse telecine and resolution upconversion; and the MPEG4IP MPEG-4 codec suite, comprehending both the audio and the video portions of the specification. Before you use and alter the source code, make sure you review and can operate under the software's licensing terms.

Another intriguing set of low- to no-cost audio utilities, developed under the KISS (keep-it-simple-stupid) approach, comes from Gidluck Mastering. The free, command line-driven Live2448 program runs under various Windows operating systems and works with MME sound-chip drivers to enable single- or dual-channel, 32-bit (IEEE floating-point) and 24-bit, packed-integer recording at 32-, 44.1- and 48-kHz sampling frequencies (see "Rotating storage makes the audio world go 'round," EDN, April 11, 2002, pg 23). Command-line options let you denote a desired audio-input device, customize the file-name format, alter the transfer from buffer to storage rate; pause, resume, and terminate recording via key presses and a timer; break the recording into multiple WAV files; and specify a maximum file size. The $20 Live2496, as its name suggests, adds support for 96-kHz sampling. Developer Gordon Gidluck is now porting Live24xx for use with a handheld audio recorder. He reports that Live2496 requires less than 1% CPU usage on a PIII-600 Dell Inspiron 5000 notebook computer and occupies only 120 kbytes of memory. Contact Gidluck to assess the porting feasibility of and negotiate the financial terms for your application.

Gidluck Mastering, gidluck@alltel.net, www.shoptheozarks.com/GGM/live2496.html.