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TC Works SPARKLE User Manual

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U S E R M A N U A L
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CD BURNING IN SPARK LE
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Summary of Contents for TC Works SPARKLE

  • Page 1 U S E R M A N U A L CD BURNING IN SPARK LE PLUS...
  • Page 2 © TC WORKS S & H H 1998 - 2002. A ARDWARE LL PRODUCT AND COMPANY NAMES ARE TRADEMARKS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS LL SPECIFICATIONS SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE LL RIGHTS RESERVED...

  • Page 3: Table Of Contents

    T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S I N T R O D U C T I O N - W E L C O M E C h a p t e r 1 G E T T I N G S T A R T E D .
  • Page 4 ..........25 OOMING .
  • Page 5 C h a p t e r 4 P L U G - I N EQ ........53 .
  • Page 6 T A B L E C O N T E N T S...
  • Page 7 TC Support Team is on constant alert to help you in any way they can. www.tcsupport.tc © BY TC WORKS SOFT & HARDWARE GMBH / TC ELECTRONIC, AS 1998 - 2003. ALL PRODUCT AND COMPANY NAMES ARE TRADEMARKS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS. NATIVE BUNDLE IS A TRADEMARK OF TC WORKS, GmbH,VST IS A TRADEMARK OF STEINBERG A.G., AUDIO UNITS IS A TRADEMARK OF APPLE COMPUTER.

  • Page 8: G E T T I N G S T A R T E D

    G E T T I N G S T A R T E D YSTEM EQUIREMENTS • Power Macintosh with G3 processor or higher • MacOS X (10.1 or higher) • 128 MB • ASIO compatible sound card for optimal audio capabilities recommended (ASIO 2.0 or Core Audio supported) •...
  • Page 9 3 This screen presents you with the ReadMe file – read it, save it if you like, then click on “Continue”. 4 Now you’re ready for the actual installation. Select “Easy Install” and pick a location for SPARK LE by clicking on the location pop-up dialog at the bottom of the screen. If you don’t set anything, SPARK LE will be installed to the root directory of your internal hard disk into a folder also named “SPARK LE”.

  • Page 10: Open Architecture : Vst, Asio

    : VST, ASIO RCHITECTURE SPARK LE supports VST Plug-Ins and the Steinberg ASIO interfaces for maximum compatibility. Most current digital audio cards are supplied with ASIO drivers and all the big names in Plug-Ins make VST Plug-Ins! Both these formats are quickly becoming standards on the Macintosh, and are already supported by the likes of Emagic, Opcode, Cakewalk –...

  • Page 11: B R O W S E R V I E W

    B R O W S E R V I E W This chapter describes the Browser View and the Transport Window. File View Play List Wave Editor Before we go into the Browser View details, let’s have a look at the Transport Window: RANSPORT INDOW The Transport Window provides all the transport controls you need to navigate through...
  • Page 12 Hardware Sample Rate Resampling Indicator Selected Output Setup Dialog – Indicates the sample rate settings of your audio ARDWARE AMPLING – hardware. – Lit if waveform’s sampling rate and actual output ESAMPLING NDICATOR sampling rate are different, so SPARK LE’s software resampling algorithm is active –...

  • Page 13: Transport Controls

    To enter the Pause mode from the keyboard, press <ENTER>. Record – Opens the Recording Dialog. Check the I/O settings in your SPARKle Preferences, if the Recording Dialog doesn’t open - the selected I/O device might not offer a recording possibility.

  • Page 14: Recording Dialog

    ECORDING IALOG SPARK LE offers flexible recording facilities.The recording dialog allows you to keep adding takes into the same file and to set your audio Inputs/Outputs right there. Click on the “Record” button in the Transport Window and the Recording Dialog will open: NOTE:The Recording dialog will not open if the selected audio device can not accept audio inputs.
  • Page 15 : AIFF, SD2 ORMAT Select the File Format you prefer. In addition to the File type, you can adjust the Sampling frequency, bit depth, and mono/stereo settings.There is no “quality difference” between the different available file formats.The most common on the Mac is “AIFF”. If you select a sampling rate that is different from the sampling rate of your audio device, the resampling function will be activated.

  • Page 16: The Browser View

    ROWSER The Browser View is one of the many innovations in SPARK LE’s user interface concept. For the first time, the File database, Play List and Wave Editor are all integrated into one window. The Browser View features dynamic movable borders to adjust the section’s sizes to your needs –...
  • Page 17 The Browser View consists of three parts: The File View with all your audio files and Regions used in your Project, the Play List where you arrange the Regions and define Crossfades, and the Wave Editor to edit your audio and create Regions. Playlist Zoom Tools Wave Editor...

  • Page 18: Active Part Of The Window

    CTIVE ART OF THE WINDOW The selected part of the Browser View is marked by a colored frame – that way you will always know whether you have focussed the File View, the Play List or the Wave Editor. To change between these three parts, simply click on the desired part, or press < TAB > / <SHIFT + TAB>...
  • Page 19 Info Trash Save File/Region as Add/Copy Region Add File Add Folder Folder File Region Add Folder – This will create a new virtual folder. Add File – Click this button to add audio files to the File View. Add/Copy Region – By clicking on this button, you will create a Region based on the current selection in your audio file.Alternatively press <COMMAND + R>.
  • Page 20 OLDERS Folders will help you to structure your audio material in the File View.At least one folder must exist in the File View. Change the folder name by double-clicking on the folder name or pressing <COMMAND + I>; this will bring up a dialog where you can enter a new name.

  • Page 21: File Formats

    • E DITING A EGION Click on the left or right Region marker in the Edit Window and move it around.To move the whole region, press <CTRL + SHIFT + CURSOR LEFT/RIGHT>. By double clicking on the Region name in the File View, you will get a Region Info screen, where you can change the Region name as well as the Region Start- and End point (Alternatively press <COMMAND + I>...

  • Page 22: Quicktime Import /Export

    UICKTIME MPORT XPORT SPARK has the capability of importing and exporting files via Apple’s QuickTime.This gives you the possibility to import all sorts of audio formats into SPARK, and also exporting audio files in QuickTime formats (the available export formats depend on the QuickTime version you are using, e.g.

  • Page 23: Wave Editor

    DITOR The Waveform Display Waveform overview Edit view Zooming Tools Info Line Drawing Tools The waveform display is the heart of any audio editor.The loaded audio file is displayed by an amplitude graph over time. For a mono file you will see one graph; for stereo files, two. The “0”...

  • Page 24: How To Make A Selection

    NSTANT PLAYBACK If you click on the waveform while keeping the <COMMAND> key pressed, the playback will instantly start from the selected position. If you are in stop mode, the playback will only play as long as the mouse button in pressed.Afterwards the playback cursor will jump back to the previous position.

  • Page 25: Zooming

    OOLS The Edit tools are only selectable when you have zoomed in to drawing resolution, otherwise the bar is grayed out and the Selection Tool is active. Selection – This is the default tool, allowing you to select parts of your audio file. Pencil –...

  • Page 26: Info Line

    An alternative method of zooming is to use the rectangle in the overview: by clicking and dragging in the overview you set the zoom level, if you click into the rectangle you will see a hand which lets you move it around without changing the set zoom factor:.The Wave Editor’s detailed view will follow your every move! If you move the zoom rectangle out of the wave overview, you will zoom out completely.

  • Page 27: Edit Functions

    To undo the last action select “Undo” from the “Edit” menu or press <COMMAND + Z>. Select this option again will undo one more step and so on.To redo an action, press <SHIFT + COMMAND + Z>. As the undo function is client based, you also need to take care that the right “Client” is selected when you perform the undo action.

  • Page 28: Process

    ROCESS SPARK LE’s off-line “Process” menu supplies you with the key DSP function for destructive editing. First, select the audio you want to process in the Wave Editor, then choose the desired function: Create a fade-in or fade-out on a selection. Make a selection at the desired fade position and choose “Fade”...
  • Page 29 ORMALIZE This will optimize the level of your selection to the maximum value you have set by the fader (usually 0dB).Open “Normalize” from the Process Menu (or press <COMMAND + OPTION + N>). EVERSE Reverses the current selection. NVERT Inverts the Phase of your selection.This will invert the phase on all channels! To invert just single channels, use the “Phase Shift”...

  • Page 30: Sample Rate Conversion

    AMPLE ONVERSION Sample rate conversion is one of those seemingly “boring” features – and a true life saver once you run into those classic situations where you need it. Here’s a scenario: your client hands you a DAT tape and asks you to master it for CD. You put it in your DAT machine, hit play and say “oh no, it’s 48kHz..”...
  • Page 31 On the following illustratin you see the same sine sweep after processing with SPARK LE’s resampling algorithm set to “good” quality. No artifacts, no ghost tones! TIME As you can see from this example, aliasing (or ghost tones) not only occur during downsampling (e.g.
  • Page 32 HICH MODE TO USE • First of all, it depends on the speed of your Mac and your patience. If it’s fast enough then use “best”, as you’ll get superior results. • If you have to save time, the “good” or “better” modes will be fine in most instances. Don’t forget: even the lowest quality mode is better than most common algorithms! Technically speaking, whenever you convert in the “inaudible range”...

  • Page 33: Lay Ist

    The Play List is used to arrange your audio material. This could either be for creating a new edit of a song (e.g. a shortened radio-edit of a long album track) or to compile a couple of songs for CD burning. Unlike some other applications, you are not limited to regions referring to one physical audio file when building a Play List –...
  • Page 34 IST SETTINGS Move: To move a Region inside the Play List, you can grab it with the “Move” icon you will find for each Region in the Play List. Click on it and move the selected entry to the desired position in the Play List. Show/Hide Sub-entries: By clicking on this icon (or <CURSOR LEFT/RIGHT>), sub-entries for each track will be shown or hidden.
  • Page 35 Gain: The gain setting for the actual Play List entry. Can be adjusted in 0.1 dB steps from –18.0 to +6.0 dB. Use this parameter to smoothen level differences between Play List entries. XFade: Transition type between the actual Play List entry and the following Play List entry. If this is the last Play List entry, the transition type is fixed to pause.
  • Page 36 XMode: Can be set to “Overlapping” or “Extending”.This defines the transition mode. “Extending” is a more musical way of setting transitions, as the relation to the beat will be kept. There are two different modes for the crossfades: In “Overlapping” mode, the Regions are put on top of each other, meaning that if you have two regions of 4 and 3 seconds, and you choose a 1 second crossfade, you will get a total playing time of 6 seconds: 4 sec (first region)
  • Page 37 Which mode you prefer will probably depend on the way you are working, but as you can see, the “Extending” mode might be the better choice for cutting music:You cut your source audio into regions fitting to bars and beats, and with the extending crossfades you then smooth the cuts without changing the music sections’...
  • Page 38 Post:The transition will be placed behind the first entry. R E G I O N 1 R E G I O N 2 CopyProt: If this box is checked, the copy prohibit bit on the CD will be set.This will allow only one digital copy stage of the CD track.
  • Page 39 UILDING A Building a Play List is easy: Simply drag regions from the FileView into the Play List – that’s it. Want to change a sequence? Take an entry, drag it to the desired position, let go – done! Want to delete an entry? Hit backspace or click on the Trash Icon on top of the Play List and it’s gone! Play List Examples Building a new track arrangement in the Play List.

  • Page 40: Cd-Burning

    CD-B URNING If you own a supported CD-writer, you can “burn” your own CDs from a Play List using SPARK LE and the optional Adaptec TOAST or Adaptec JAM applications. Please note that Adaptec Jam is required for Red Book compatible Audio CDs, which is the required format for professional CD duplication.
  • Page 41 Once SPARK LE has finished creating the CD image, Roxio TOAST, JAM or Apple iTunes will be launched and the CD image will be automatically loaded: Just check the CD burner settings and start burning the CD! Note: If you are using Roxio TOAST or Apple iTunes, you should also check the Pause settings between the tracks, as TOAST automatically sets a 2 second pause.
  • Page 42 B R O W S E R V I E W...
  • Page 43 M A S T E R V I E W Open the Master View by choosing “Show Master” from the Windows menu on SPARK LE’s menu bar or by pressing <COMMAND + 3>. The Master Window consists of two main parts: on the left is the Master Section and on the right the four effects slots.

  • Page 44: Master Fader

    ASTER ADER The Master Faders control SPARK LE’s master audio output.This is the last stage of processing in the signal flow. The two Master Faders are grouped, so you can easily adjust the level for both channels simultaneously.To ungroup the faders, press the <CONTROL>...

  • Page 45: Create File

    REATE The Create File dialog enables you to render the FXmachine settings to an audio file. Depending on what screen (File View,Wave Editor or Play List) is active, you can render a portion of a file, the entire file, or the entire Play List. The Browser View focus determines which screen is active, and which audio will have the effects applied.

  • Page 46: Fx Slots

    OCATION When you choose to create a new file from either the “Create New from Selection” or the “Create New from Whole File”, the location option will become active. Here, you can name your new file, choose a destination folder, and change the file format and bit depth. If the Browser View focus indicates that you are in the Play List, then it is only possible to “Create New from Whole File”.This will render your entire Play List with the effects from the FXmachine to a new file on your hard drive.You will still have the possibility to Add Tail...

  • Page 47: Realtime Effects

    EALTIME FFECTS SPARK LE supplies you with a 1x4 FX routing chain. So you can process your audio with up to 4 Plug-Ins in real time simultaneously! HICH N FORMATS CAN BE USED SPARK LE supports VST Plug-Ins, the standard for native real-time processing on the Mac. So you can choose from a wide variety of Plug-Ins.

  • Page 48: How To Copy Plug -Ins

    OW TO COPY Would you like to have the same Plug-In in two (or more) places? No problem: While holding down the <OPTION> key, drag the desired Plug-In from its original position to the desired destination and drop it there.The copied Plug-In will maintain all settings, which you can of course change independently of the “original.”...

  • Page 49: Menu

    ONTEXT ENSITIVE When <CTRL + Clicking> on a Plug-In slot, a context sensitive menu will open.This will give you the possibility to add and remove Plug-Ins to/from the current Plug-In slot as well as some general display options for the FXmachine: Will let you choose a Plug-In for the current effect slot.

  • Page 50: System Performance : The System Info Screen

    YSTEM ERFORMANCE YSTEM CREEN The number of Plug-Ins that can be loaded into SPARK LE’s FXmachine is dependent from the CPU Speed and the Memory setting for SPARK LE.To give you valuable feedback on the current system load, SPARK LE offers a “System Info” screen, that indicates the available memory (in byte), the CPU load (in%) and the harddisk prefor- mance (in %).This screen can be opened from the “Windows”...
  • Page 51 ULTIPLE IEWS Usually, when you open the edit view of a Plug-In, it will show up in the same window the previous Plug-In used. In some cases, it might be helpful to get more than one effects window open at one time.To open additional Plug-In edit screens, press the <OPTION> key while double-clicking on the Plug-In on the matrix.This will open a Plug-In View for this particular Plug-In.This window is reserved for this Plug-In and will not change or disappear when you choose a Plug-In from another matrix slot.
  • Page 52 M A S T E R V I E W...

  • Page 53: One Band Eq

    P L U G - I N S SPARKle has a powerful realtime processing engine with 4 Plug-In slots.You can either load any of the included SPARKle Plug-Ins or Plug-Ins which are compatible with Steinberg’s VST Plug-In interface. Please note, that the included Plug-Ins do not support VST – so they can...

  • Page 54: Max It

    When mixing or mastering a project, you might want to boost the loudness or “energy” of the music. MaxIt will supply you with an easy-to- use, yet powerful dynamics processing tool to do just that! With only 3 parameters you’ll have everything under control.

  • Page 55: Preferences

    CD BURNING WITH SPARK SUPPORTED FEATURES To burn an Audio CD with SPARK, you must first assemble your audio files in the Playlist. SPARK’s CD burning facilities supports your audio project with many convenient features. • High Resolution Recordings, such as 24 bit 96 kHz, can be used in the Playlist. •...
  • Page 56 The CD Frame time format is: HH:MM:SS:CD Frames. Frames in the CD Frame time format begins with Frame 0 and ends with Frame 74. NOTE: The CD Frame time format will only function in 44.1 kHz audio files. USING EXTERNAL BURNING APPLICATIONS In the General Preferences, you might want to set the ”Use external CD Burning Application”...
  • Page 57 SAVING YOUR PLAYLIST INFORMATION From the Playlist menu, you can select the ”Save Playlist Content to file” option to save your Playlist information as an HTML file. This is ideal for opening the Playlist Content in your favorite web browser and printing the content of your Playlist. The saved data is tab-delimited, allowing you to copy the text data into a plain text (ASCI) editor with the appropriate arrangement of rows and columns.
  • Page 58 M I S C E L L A N E O U S REFERENCES The Preferences dialog allows you to define defaults for SPARK LE, such as the location of your Plug-Ins or your preferred time scale as well as many other settings.You will need to set up most of SPARK LE’s Preferences only once.
  • Page 59 OLDERS On the Plug-In page, you can define up to four different Plug-In folders for SPARK LE – and select which folders you want activate. For example, you could split your Plug-Ins into different groups, a “Recording” group and a “Mastering” group. Or you might have another application on your system that has its own VST Plug-In folder.You don’t have to copy these Plug-Ins and have the Plug-Ins on your harddisk multiple times:...

  • Page 60: Spark Le File Types

    After the drivers have been added, the next screen will provide you with a "List of currently installed ASIO Drivers.” Select "OK" to quit the application and return to the finder. The next time you launch Spark, your newly added ASIO driver will be available from your I/O Preferences.
  • Page 61 DITOR NIT USED BY EDITOR The Editor page allows you to select the preferred time unit, drawing mode and Clipboard settings. “Unit used by editor” sets the preferred time unit, either in Sam- ple Frames, Seconds, Hours:Minutes:Seconds or even milliseconds.The chosen unit will be used for time indication in the Browser View.
  • Page 62 The “Temporary File Folder” defines the folder where temporary files are stored on your system. By default, this is an invisible folder on your system harddisk.The Temporary File Folder should be set to a drive with enough space for audio files! EFAULT IST ENTRY On the Play List page, there is the possibility to select a default...
  • Page 63 SPARK YPES SPARK LE utilizes several types of files: ROJECT The Project file includes all the file references, Regions, Play Lists, FX settings and configurations,Window settings, etc. In short, everything! Load and save Projects from the File menu. Saving a “default.prj” in the SPARK LE application folder will allow you to start SPARK LE with preconfigured settings, presets and even preloaded files and Plug-Ins! If you don’t want to load the “default.prj”, press <CONTROL + OPTION>...

  • Page 64: Hardware Support

    UDIO ILES SPARK LE will save your audio files as WAV, SDII or AIFF. Project Files only refer to these audio files, they don’t include them! If you move an audio file to a different location, delete or rename it, existing Project files won’t be able to find this file anymore. (OVW) VERVIEW ILES...

  • Page 65: Save / Save As / Export Options

    If you would like to edit the loop points numerically, double-click on the file name (not the region) in the file view to bring up the Sample Data dialog. Note: If you make a selection, the selection will be played instead of the loop.

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