		SoX: Sound eXchange


SoX (also known as Sound eXchange) translates sound samples between different
file formats, and optionally performs various sound effects.  

This release understands:

  o Raw files in various binary formats
  o Raw textual data
  o Microsoft .WAV files
    o PCM, u-law, a-law
    o MS ADPCM (Read only)
    o IMA ADPCM (Read only)
  o MAUD files
  o Sound Blaster .VOC files
  o IRCAM SoundFile files
  o SUN .au files
    o PCM, u-law, a-law
    o G7xx ADPCM files (read only)
  o mutant DEC .au files
  o Apple/SGI AIFF files
  o CD-R (music CD format)
  o Macintosh HCOM files
  o Sounder files
  o NeXT .snd files
  o Soundtool (DOS) files
  o Psion (palmtop) A-law files

The sound effects include:

  o Channel Averaging
  o Band-pass filter
  o Chorus effect
  o Cut out loop samples
  o Add an echo 
  o Add a sequence of echos
  o Apply a flanger effect
  o Apply a high-pass filter
  o Apply a low-pass filter
  o Display a list of loops in a file
  o Add masking noise to a signal
  o Apply a phaser effect
  o Convert from stereo to mono
  o Change sampling rates using several different algorithms.
  o Apply a reverb effect
  o Reverse the sound samples (to search for Satanic messages ;-)
  o Convert from mono to stereo
  o Swap stereo channels
  o Display general stats on a sound sample
  o Add the world-famous Fender Vibro-Champ effect

Big news! Lots of new effects have been added.  This includes most the
popular "Guitar Effects" talked about in the same named FAQ available.

The 'resample' and 'polyphase' effect does high-grade signal rate
changes using real signal theory.  Yes, it's very slow.

History:

This is the 12th release, Patchlevel 16 of the Sound Tools.
SoX was originally written and maintained by Lance Norskog but
unfortunetly he has stopped maintaining it since 1995.  I, Chris
Bagwell (cbagwell@sprynet.com), have started maintaining it since
1996 to the present.

Caveats:

SoX is intended as the Swiss Army knife of sound processing tools.  It 
doesn't do anything very well, but sooner or later it comes in very handy.
SoX is really only usable day-to-day if you hide the wacky options with 
one-line shell scripts.

Installing:

Unless your using a precompiled binary version, you will need to compile
SoX as described in the INSTALL file.  Please read that file for further
instructions.

Now, read TIPS, CHEAT.eft and CHEAT.  These give a background on how
SoX deals with sound files and how to convert this format
to that format, and apply various effects.

SoX uses file suffices to determine the nature of a sound sample file.
If it finds the suffix in its list, it uses the appropriate read
or write handler to deal with that file.  You may override the suffix
by giving a different type via the '-t type' argument.  See the manual
page for more information.

SoX has an auto-detect feature that attempts to figure out
the nature of an unmarked sound sample.  It works very well.
This feature is used if you specify '-t auto' for the file type.

I hope to inspire the creation of a common base of sound processing
tools for computer multimedia work, similar to the PBM toolkit for 
image manipulation.

Sound Tools may be used for any purpose.  Source
distributions must include the copyright notices.  Binary
distributions must include acknowledgements to the creators.
Files are copyright by their respective authors.

If you have bug fixes/enhancements, please send it to me as I would like
to coordinate the releases.  Please document your changes.  I don't 
possess every kind of computer currently sold, and SoX is now beyond 
the phase where I can understand and test most of your contributions.

The majority of SoX features and source code are contributed
by you the user.  Thank you very much for making SoX a success!

	Creator:
		Lance Norskog		thinman@meer.net (inactive currently)

	Mantainer:
		Chris Bagwell		cbagwell@sprynet.com

	Contributors:
		Juergen Mueller		jmueller@uia.ua.ac.be
			chorus, echo, echos, flanger, phaser, and reverb
			effects.
		Guido Van Rossum	guido@cwi.nl
			AU, AIFF, AUTO, HCOM, reverse,
			many bug fixes
		Jef Poskanzer		jef@well.sf.ca.us
			original code for u-law and delay line
		Bill Neisius		bill%solaria@hac2arpa.hac.com 
			DOS port, 8SVX, Sounder, Soundtool formats
			Apollo fixes, stat with auto-picker
		Rick Richardson		rick@digibd.com
			WAV and SB driver handlers, fixes
		David Champion		dgc3@midway.uchicago.edu
			Amiga port 
		Pace Willisson		pace@blitz.com
			Fixes for ESIX
		Leigh Smith		leigh@psychokiller.dialix.oz.au
			SMP and comment movement support.
			AIFF Loop/MIDI support
		David Sanderson		dws@ssec.wisc.edu
			AIX3.1 fixes
		Glenn Lewis		glewis@pcocd2.intel.com
			AIFF chunking fixes
		Brian Campbell		brianc@quantum.qnx.com
			QNX port and 16-bit fixes
		Chris Adams		gt8741@prism.gatech.edu
			DOS port fixes
		John Kohl		jtkohl@kolvir.elcr.ca.us
			BSD386 port, VOC stereo support
		Ken Kubo		ken@hmcvax.claremont.edu
			VMS port, VOC stereo support
		Frank Gadegast 		<phade@cs.tu-berlin.de>
			Microsoft C 7.0 & C Borland 3.0 ports
		David Elliot		<dce@scmc.sony.com>
			CD-R format support
		David Sears		<dns@essnj3.essnjay.com>
			Linux support
		Tom Littlejohn          <tlit@seq1.loc.gov>
			Raw textual data
		Boisy G. Pitre 		boisy@microware.com
			OS9 port
                Sun Microsystems, Guido Van Rossum
		        CCITT G.711, G.721, G.723 implementation
		Graeme Gill		graeme@labtam.labtam.oz.au
			A-LAW format, Good .WAV handling,
			avg channel expansion
		Allen Grider		grider@hfsi.hfsi.com
			VOC stereo mode, WAV file handling
		Michel Fingerhut 	Michel.Fingerhut@ircam.fr
			Upgrade 'sf' format to current IRCAM format.
			Float file support.
		Chris Knight
			Achimedes Acorn support
		Richard Caley 		R.Caley@ed.ac.uk
			Psion WVE handler
		Lutz Vieweg		lkv@mania.RoBIN.de
			MAUD (Amiga) file handler
		Tim Gardner		timg@tpi.com
			Windows NT port for V7
		Jimen Ching 		jiching@wiliki.eng.hawaii.edu
			Libst porting bugs
		Lauren Weinstein	lauren@vortex.com
			DOS porting, scripts, professional use
		Chris Bagwell		cbagwell@sprynet.com
			OSS and Sun players, bugfixes, ADPCM support,
			patch collection and maintance.
		(your name could be here, too)
		(I've probably lost a few, and several people fixed
		 the same bugs.)

