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Choose your Operating Mode
The software can be operated in either of two basic operational modes. Choose your operating mode based on your personal preference. Beginners will likely find that the Fast-Edit mode is easier to get oriented with since it works more like traditional audio editing programs. More advanced users will likely switch to the Classic mode since this offers a fully optimized restoration environment. You can quickly switch between these two modes of operation via the “One Click Edit Mode Switch” icon. Just click on the icon and it will toggle between the two alternative editing modes.
“One Click Edit Mode Switch” Icon
Fast-Edit Mode
The Fast-Edit (single file editing mode) mode operates much like a word processor where all editing is done on one file. The original file is not modified until a “Save” is performed. Fast-Edit mode maintains a separate history file representing the editing sequence and offers almost unlimited Undo capability. The advantage of the Fast Edit’s Single file editing mode is its “greased lightning” speed, leaving you with more time for your domestic chores. Where editing examples are used in this manual in order to highlight the use of an editing or filtering sequence, the Classic Edit (Source and Destination) mode is utilized.
In this Fast-Edit mode, you preview the processing results, and if not satisfactory, you can use the “Undo” feature found in the Edit menu. Also, you can highlight a particular step in the Fast-Edit history in order to quickly jump back to a previous editing state. The editing processes will be temporarily undone back to the selected point in the Edit History Monitor. If you want to permanently go back to a previous editing state you can simply double click on the last edit you want to delete in the Fast-Edit Window (display). All editing done after that point will be removed and you can continue your editing session. The Delete function can also be found by clicking with the right mouse button. Fast Edit temp files are maintained in the same directory as the source file and include elements of the original file name for ease of identification. The Fast-Edit history file uses the extension of .ses. Temporary files created by your Diamond Cut Software precede the extension with dctmpxx. They are stored in the TempFiles directory and can have various file extensions such as .wav, .pkf, or .ses.
Classic (Edit) Mode
DCArt10/DC Forensics10 Classic (Edit) mode usually operates on files in a non-destructive manner. The Source and Destination mode (the Classic technique) involves the use of a “Source and Destination” set of files. When a file is processed with a DCArt10/DC Forensics10 filter or effect, the software reads the Source file, modifies it with the selected filter or effect, which then writes it to the Destination file. The main workspace of DCArt10/DC Forensics10 always has a Source and a Destination file in the Classic (Edit) mode. This mode of operation has a few important benefits:
The Source and Destination Workspace
When you open a .wav file in DCArt10/DC Forensics Classic-Edit Mode, two workspaces will appear. The top one, called the Source Workspace will display an envelope consisting of the program peaks of the .wav file just opened. If you are using Peak files (a user preference), the entire waveform should be visible in the window. If you have peak files turned off, then the amount of the .wav file that will be displayed is determined by your preferences "display limit" settings. Both settings can be found in the Edit/ Preferences/General section of the Edit Menu. The display will consist of a black signal on a yellow background (depending on the user’s preference settings).
The Destination Workspace just below the Source workspace will contain no waveform information initially, and will contain a gray background color. Both of these two workspaces display amplitude on the Y-Axis (vertical) and time on the X-Axis (horizontal). When you initially open a file, the entire file is displayed, and is periodically represented by a sample of the peak of the waveform envelope. When you Zoom-in on a portion of the waveform, at some value of magnification, you will begin to see continuous waveforms, rather than impulse representations of your .wav file signal. For more information regarding Zooming-In on a .wav file or Zooming-Out on a .wav file, please refer to the sections entitled "Zooming-In & Zooming-Out on portions of a .wav file". Please note that the active workspace is always shown in yellow (the software default setting).
If you are working with stereo .wav files, the workspace will display a pair of waveforms. The top waveform in either of the workspaces represents the left channel while the bottom waveform represents the right channel. If the signal is monophonic, only one waveform will be seen in the workspace(s).
At the top of the DCArt10/Forensics10 screen is a Title bar, which contains the name of the opened Source .wav file. At the bottom of the DCArt10/Forensics10 screen and on the right side, you will see five little boxes. The first shows the Mode in which the file was recorded or processed (“Stereo” or “Mono”) followed by the Sample Rate that was used to create the file and then the Bit Depth. The fourth box give the total running time of the Source .wav file and the final box shows the space remaining on the hard drive being used.
After a .wav file has been processed by one of the functions under the Filter command, the output of that file will be sampled just like the Source file and displayed in the Destination workspace just below the Source workspace. It will become highlighted in yellow just following the completion of a processing session.
At the bottom of each of the two workspaces, you will see several time displays. Each display is indicated in Minutes: Seconds: Milliseconds. The time display on the left side of the workspaces indicates the starting time of the portion of the .wav file being displayed in the particular workspace. The time display on the right side of the two workspaces indicates the ending time of the displayed portion of the highlighted .wav file. When a file is initially opened, the display on the left will indicate 00: 00: 00. The right display will indicate the total time duration of the opened .wav file. If you use the Zoom function, the left display will now display the start time of the highlighted
Zoom-In portion of the .wav file. The right time display will indicate the end-time of the highlighted Zoomed-In portion of the .wav file. The total time duration of the Zoomed-In highlighted portion of the .wav file will be displayed on the status bar located below the workspaces.
At the right hand side of each of the two workspaces, you will see two vertically oriented slider controls next to one another. These are useful for viewing details in a selected portion of a waveform which has been Zoomed-In on. For example, there may be a small transient that you want to see in more detail that is riding on top of a much larger waveform. The control on the farthest right is the “Display Gain” control. Using your mouse, you can move this control up and down in order to change the display gain. Moving it downwards will increase the gain of the time display. This will cause the waveform to appear larger on your screen (you can also adjust the Display Gain using your mouse scroll wheel). However, it may get so large as to move the portion of the waveform in which you are interested off of the top or the bottom of the display screen. The control just to the left of the gain control is the “Offset” control; this is used to move the entire portion of the waveform in which you are interested back into view. You should experiment with these controls a few times to get a feel for how they behave, and then you will begin to understand their usefulness.
At the bottom of each workspace, you will see the “Time Axis Scroll-bar”. This control is also operated by the left mouse button, and is used to move the “Play Pointer” to various locations within the display workspace. Sometimes, there can be a few seconds of delay when using this slider, so be patient as it performs the calculations to keep up with your commands. When you are Zoomed-In on a portion of a file, the slider control can be used to move the display start-point within the highlighted field using either the slider with your mouse, or by using the arrow controls which are located at each end of the slider. The Time Axis Scroll-bar position is always relative to the entire file length, no matter how zoomed-in on a particular waveform you may be. Clicking on the right arrow button will move the waveform to the left of the workspace 1/10th of the overall display length and clicking on the left-hand arrow button will do the same thing, only moving the file in the opposite direction. If you click on the Scroll-bar (not the slider control itself), the waveform will move one full frame to the left each time you click.
Note 1: The Time Axis Scroll-bar is inactive when you are fully zoomed-out.
Note 2:If you are not using Peak Files, then the software only reads the first few Megabytes of a .wav file for the initial display. No .wav file processing operations are adversely affected by this action. Portions of your .wav file not shown on the display can still be played, filtered and operated on just as if they were displayed. To set the size of the waveform that will be displayed, use the Preferences dialog box (found under the edit menu) and increase the "Display Length Limit" to the size of the file you wish to be displayed. Keep in mind that the larger the display size, the longer it will take to initially open a .wav file. We recommend the use of Peak Files for faster future displays of the .wav file data.
Note 3: The Destination Workspace can be converted into an Audio Spectrogram time synced to the Source Workspace. Zooming in and out of either time or spectrogram view remain synchronized. Please refer to the appropriate section of the manual for details on the operation of the Audio Spectrograph/Spectrogram.
Note 4: How to Choose Your Mode – To switch between Classic-Editing and Fast-Editing mode is fairly simple. If you start with one and decide you want to try the other one, you can simply go to the Edit Menu and click on Preferences and the General Tab. There you will see a check box that enables Fast Edit Mode. You then need to exit the program and re-run it for the changes to take place or you need to close any open file and then re-open it for the new mode to be invoked. Alternatively, you can simply click on the “One Click Switch” icon which toggles back and forth between the two editing modes.
The software can be operated in either of two basic operational modes. Choose your operating mode based on your personal preference. Beginners will likely find that the Fast-Edit mode is easier to get oriented with since it works more like traditional audio editing programs. More advanced users will likely switch to the Classic mode since this offers a fully optimized restoration environment. You can quickly switch between these two modes of operation via the “One Click Edit Mode Switch” icon. Just click on the icon and it will toggle between the two alternative editing modes.
“One Click Edit Mode Switch” Icon
Fast-Edit Mode
The Fast-Edit (single file editing mode) mode operates much like a word processor where all editing is done on one file. The original file is not modified until a “Save” is performed. Fast-Edit mode maintains a separate history file representing the editing sequence and offers almost unlimited Undo capability. The advantage of the Fast Edit’s Single file editing mode is its “greased lightning” speed, leaving you with more time for your domestic chores. Where editing examples are used in this manual in order to highlight the use of an editing or filtering sequence, the Classic Edit (Source and Destination) mode is utilized.
In this Fast-Edit mode, you preview the processing results, and if not satisfactory, you can use the “Undo” feature found in the Edit menu. Also, you can highlight a particular step in the Fast-Edit history in order to quickly jump back to a previous editing state. The editing processes will be temporarily undone back to the selected point in the Edit History Monitor. If you want to permanently go back to a previous editing state you can simply double click on the last edit you want to delete in the Fast-Edit Window (display). All editing done after that point will be removed and you can continue your editing session. The Delete function can also be found by clicking with the right mouse button. Fast Edit temp files are maintained in the same directory as the source file and include elements of the original file name for ease of identification. The Fast-Edit history file uses the extension of .ses. Temporary files created by your Diamond Cut Software precede the extension with dctmpxx. They are stored in the TempFiles directory and can have various file extensions such as .wav, .pkf, or .ses.
Classic (Edit) Mode
DCArt10/DC Forensics10 Classic (Edit) mode usually operates on files in a non-destructive manner. The Source and Destination mode (the Classic technique) involves the use of a “Source and Destination” set of files. When a file is processed with a DCArt10/DC Forensics10 filter or effect, the software reads the Source file, modifies it with the selected filter or effect, which then writes it to the Destination file. The main workspace of DCArt10/DC Forensics10 always has a Source and a Destination file in the Classic (Edit) mode. This mode of operation has a few important benefits:
- The original source file is not modified, leaving it available for instant comparisons with the processed version.
- The original material can always be recovered if the results of processing are found to be unsatisfactory.
- Selected sections of the file can be reprocessed using different filter parameters or different filters entirely (refer to “Sync Files” mode).
- Every filter that is run yields a new file which can have yet another filter run thereon. All of these intermediate files are always available so that the users can instantly go back one or more steps in the restoration process. These files are all stored in the .wav format.
The Source and Destination Workspace
When you open a .wav file in DCArt10/DC Forensics Classic-Edit Mode, two workspaces will appear. The top one, called the Source Workspace will display an envelope consisting of the program peaks of the .wav file just opened. If you are using Peak files (a user preference), the entire waveform should be visible in the window. If you have peak files turned off, then the amount of the .wav file that will be displayed is determined by your preferences "display limit" settings. Both settings can be found in the Edit/ Preferences/General section of the Edit Menu. The display will consist of a black signal on a yellow background (depending on the user’s preference settings).
The Destination Workspace just below the Source workspace will contain no waveform information initially, and will contain a gray background color. Both of these two workspaces display amplitude on the Y-Axis (vertical) and time on the X-Axis (horizontal). When you initially open a file, the entire file is displayed, and is periodically represented by a sample of the peak of the waveform envelope. When you Zoom-in on a portion of the waveform, at some value of magnification, you will begin to see continuous waveforms, rather than impulse representations of your .wav file signal. For more information regarding Zooming-In on a .wav file or Zooming-Out on a .wav file, please refer to the sections entitled "Zooming-In & Zooming-Out on portions of a .wav file". Please note that the active workspace is always shown in yellow (the software default setting).
If you are working with stereo .wav files, the workspace will display a pair of waveforms. The top waveform in either of the workspaces represents the left channel while the bottom waveform represents the right channel. If the signal is monophonic, only one waveform will be seen in the workspace(s).
At the top of the DCArt10/Forensics10 screen is a Title bar, which contains the name of the opened Source .wav file. At the bottom of the DCArt10/Forensics10 screen and on the right side, you will see five little boxes. The first shows the Mode in which the file was recorded or processed (“Stereo” or “Mono”) followed by the Sample Rate that was used to create the file and then the Bit Depth. The fourth box give the total running time of the Source .wav file and the final box shows the space remaining on the hard drive being used.
After a .wav file has been processed by one of the functions under the Filter command, the output of that file will be sampled just like the Source file and displayed in the Destination workspace just below the Source workspace. It will become highlighted in yellow just following the completion of a processing session.
At the bottom of each of the two workspaces, you will see several time displays. Each display is indicated in Minutes: Seconds: Milliseconds. The time display on the left side of the workspaces indicates the starting time of the portion of the .wav file being displayed in the particular workspace. The time display on the right side of the two workspaces indicates the ending time of the displayed portion of the highlighted .wav file. When a file is initially opened, the display on the left will indicate 00: 00: 00. The right display will indicate the total time duration of the opened .wav file. If you use the Zoom function, the left display will now display the start time of the highlighted
Zoom-In portion of the .wav file. The right time display will indicate the end-time of the highlighted Zoomed-In portion of the .wav file. The total time duration of the Zoomed-In highlighted portion of the .wav file will be displayed on the status bar located below the workspaces.
At the right hand side of each of the two workspaces, you will see two vertically oriented slider controls next to one another. These are useful for viewing details in a selected portion of a waveform which has been Zoomed-In on. For example, there may be a small transient that you want to see in more detail that is riding on top of a much larger waveform. The control on the farthest right is the “Display Gain” control. Using your mouse, you can move this control up and down in order to change the display gain. Moving it downwards will increase the gain of the time display. This will cause the waveform to appear larger on your screen (you can also adjust the Display Gain using your mouse scroll wheel). However, it may get so large as to move the portion of the waveform in which you are interested off of the top or the bottom of the display screen. The control just to the left of the gain control is the “Offset” control; this is used to move the entire portion of the waveform in which you are interested back into view. You should experiment with these controls a few times to get a feel for how they behave, and then you will begin to understand their usefulness.
At the bottom of each workspace, you will see the “Time Axis Scroll-bar”. This control is also operated by the left mouse button, and is used to move the “Play Pointer” to various locations within the display workspace. Sometimes, there can be a few seconds of delay when using this slider, so be patient as it performs the calculations to keep up with your commands. When you are Zoomed-In on a portion of a file, the slider control can be used to move the display start-point within the highlighted field using either the slider with your mouse, or by using the arrow controls which are located at each end of the slider. The Time Axis Scroll-bar position is always relative to the entire file length, no matter how zoomed-in on a particular waveform you may be. Clicking on the right arrow button will move the waveform to the left of the workspace 1/10th of the overall display length and clicking on the left-hand arrow button will do the same thing, only moving the file in the opposite direction. If you click on the Scroll-bar (not the slider control itself), the waveform will move one full frame to the left each time you click.
Note 1: The Time Axis Scroll-bar is inactive when you are fully zoomed-out.
Note 2:If you are not using Peak Files, then the software only reads the first few Megabytes of a .wav file for the initial display. No .wav file processing operations are adversely affected by this action. Portions of your .wav file not shown on the display can still be played, filtered and operated on just as if they were displayed. To set the size of the waveform that will be displayed, use the Preferences dialog box (found under the edit menu) and increase the "Display Length Limit" to the size of the file you wish to be displayed. Keep in mind that the larger the display size, the longer it will take to initially open a .wav file. We recommend the use of Peak Files for faster future displays of the .wav file data.
Note 3: The Destination Workspace can be converted into an Audio Spectrogram time synced to the Source Workspace. Zooming in and out of either time or spectrogram view remain synchronized. Please refer to the appropriate section of the manual for details on the operation of the Audio Spectrograph/Spectrogram.
Note 4: How to Choose Your Mode – To switch between Classic-Editing and Fast-Editing mode is fairly simple. If you start with one and decide you want to try the other one, you can simply go to the Edit Menu and click on Preferences and the General Tab. There you will see a check box that enables Fast Edit Mode. You then need to exit the program and re-run it for the changes to take place or you need to close any open file and then re-open it for the new mode to be invoked. Alternatively, you can simply click on the “One Click Switch” icon which toggles back and forth between the two editing modes.