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SOFTWARE REVIEW TALK TO YOUR PC with the Microsoft Windows Sound System I MAGINE BEING able to throw away your mouse and keyboard and op erate Windows and any Windows applications by just speaking the commands . into a microphone. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? This ideal is a little way off yet but Microsoft has just released the first low-cost practical sound interface system designed for serious applications. But it's much more than just a digital audio recorde.r or a voice command translator. It's a complete audio system designed to enhance and support business reports and displays. So when we were offered the chance to take a look at Microsoft's latest package, we jumped at it! As we see it, audio command input or voice recognition will be a significant step forward in computer evolution. The opportunities and applications are endless - from automatic teller machines, to desktop publishing, to medical work, to industrial control. It will also be a great step forward for the disabled, enabling them to take part in careers that would otherwise be a whole lot more difficult. And it will make computers more accessible to the general public , reducing some of the "fear" that prevents many from using them. Keyboards and buttons will be replaced by just a microphone, making computers easy to use. The Microsoft Windows Sound System comes with a sound card (with an Analog Devices' DSP chip on board), a pair of headphones, a microphone, a set of floppy discs and a comprehensive manual. The card is a 16-bit device so you'll 16 SILICON CHIP The Microsoft Windows Sound System marks a breakthrough. It can record CD quality sound, add sound to business presentations, and control many Windows applications. By DARREN YATES need a spare 16-bit slot. There are two RCA line out sockets and several stereo 3.5mm sockets which serve as audio inputs and outputs. If you don't like wearing headphones , you can connect a couple of small un-powered or powered mini speakers to the headphone socket. So being calm, methodical and following the normal rules, we lunged straight for the discs and loaded the program in. However, Microsoft has apparently realised that few people bother to look at the manual at this stage. We say that because once the program has been loaded, the initial screen talks about installing the board - which isn't a bad idea! Installing the program Installation of the program is as simple as loading the first disc into ~ocabulary For: Definitions: OK Cancel Left Right Up Down Help New Open Move Copy {Enter} {EscHEsc} {Left} {Right} {Up} {Down} {Fl} N 0 M C The Vocabulary utility lists the voice commands used in a particular application, in this case for Program Manager. The buttons down the righthand side allow new words to be entered & edited as required. the drive and running the setup program under Windows. The Windows Sound System program then takes over. It even explains the options when configuring the board, so that it doesn't interfere with other external devices such as hard drives and modems , etc. Windows creates its own program group for the Sound System software and this has eight icons - Volume Control, Recording Control, Sound Finder, Music Box, Windows Sound System Setup, Quick Recorder, Voice Pilot and Guided Tour. And, of course, there's a comprehensive help menu as well. If you're not into reading manuals but want to learn about the program in the shortest time possible, then the guided tour is your best bet (but put the headphones on first). It takes you through each of the applications with simulated on-screen windows, as well as giving you examples of what to expect through the headphones. It doesn't take you through every possible option but it will give you a good idea of what to expect from the program. Volume Control The Volume Control option lets you set up the volume and balance to the outputs and headphones. In the expanded view, it also sets up the audio mix from the microphone and audio inputs, as well as from a sound file already in your machine. Recording Control The recording control is slightly different in that it sets the source, either line-in or microphone input, as well as the input level and balance when you record. Note that the Sound System records in stereo with the line input but in mono with the microphone. Sound Finder This is the first of the major applications. Once you click onto the Sound Finder icon, the system displays a list of the sound files that come with the Windows Sound System. You can load and play any one of these files using the menu and execution keys down the righthand side of the screen. The Windows Sound System supplies 52 sound files which include music samples, birds, elephants, clapping, industrial tools - just about The Windows Sound System package comes complete with a sound adapter card, a microphone, a pair of lightweight headphones, a comprehensive instruction manual & either 3½-inch or 5¼-inch floppy discs. An on-screen guided tour guides the system setup & teaches the basics to get you started. everything you could imagine (except a 38-class loco climbing a steep grade). For example, you can load a file called CHIME3.WAV (all Sound System sound files have the extension .WAV). Click on the PLAY button and you'll hear the sound of wind chimes. You can stop it at any time, adjust the volume and edit the sound file. Each sound file can also be given a special icon which describes the sound. This can be changed at any time. There is also room to give a written description of the sound file to say what it is, who recorded it or whatever. There is also a Properties menu which shows you the sampling rate and size of a particular sound file that has been recorded. Quick Recorder This is where you create your own masterpieces. The Quick Recorder comes in two modes : (1) a reduced screen graphic which displays the basic record, play and stop functions, the name of the file , its duration and the current recording position (we'll talk more about this in a moment); and (2) an expanded view which gives you an editing window as well. This displays an approximated waveform of your sound file. You can think of it as an oscilloscope which can display the whole file on screen at once! MAY 1993 17 front and pasting them on the back. Mixing a number of waveforms together is also possible and this is done using the PASTE MIX option from the EDIT menu. You can select any portion of a waveform and mix it at any point with an existing sound file (this can be done repeatedly). By the way, we ran the Windows Sound System on a 25MHz 386 with a co-processor and found that if you push the system to its Hmits ( ie, record stereo CD quality with all the memory you have), the machine runs out of speed Quick Recorder displays the waveform for a selected file (in this case, Dazza.wav). It on replay. By this, we allows you to cut .& paste sections of the waveform to change the word order & to add in or mean that the sound is mix various sound effects (eg, echo, fade, speed, & base & treble filtering). - replayed in "chunks" as To start off, you click on the file sample determine the overall sound the program processes the next piece option, and select NEW. Quick Re- quality, with higher numbers in both of audio to be sent to the output. This corder will then ask you to pick a parameters producing superior record- is where the Pentium® (the successor sampling rate as well as the number ings. Once you've selected these pa- to the 486) would come in very handy. rameters, you then click on the of bits taken per sample. You have three choices of sampling RECORD button and away you go. The Proof Reader rate: radio (1 lkHz), tape (22kHz), or computer will then record the in put If you're using Microsoft Excel or CD (44kHz) quality. There are also until either you press the STOP but- Lotus 1-2-3 from Windows , you can three choices for compression: com- ton or you run out of memory, which use the Windows Sound System to ever is first. pressed (4 bits per sample), normal (8 verify your numbers and text as you The computer will then, after chew- load them in. bits) and high fidelity (16 bits). These also determine how long your ing over the data, display a waveform You can also load in your own dicrecordings will be. For example, if on the screen which simulates your tionary and Sound System will use this to check your documents. The you choose CD quality sampling at input. the high fidelity compression, you'll There are various effects which can speed at which it reads as well as the now be applied to the recording and direction can all be set or customised chew up 88Kb of RAM per second. And that's only for mono sound. If these are accessible through the EF- to suit your particular application. you want to record stereo CD quality; FECTS menu. These effects include it becomes 176Kb per second. Over a fading up and down, varying the speed Voice Pilot period of 30 seconds, this works out in 25% increments, adding in echoes The Voice Pilot section was the most (such as auditorium, closet and can- interesting feature of the package. It to be well over 2.5Mb of RAM just for mono sound. The sound quality will yon), filtering out treble or bass, and allows you to speak commands into trimming the sound file to remove the computer rather than having to be great but not for very long. silent portions. If you take the lowest quality opclick a mouse or punch a keyboard. This last effect is useful if you wish tions, 2.5Mb will give you about eight The main problem with voice recminutes of recording time in mono to include as much information as ognition systems in the past has been possible for a given memory space. and four minutes in stereo. the ability to recognise the same word being said by any number of people. Editing Digital recording Even though it is easy for you and I to You can also use the editing windistinguish the way different people The way Sound System records is similar to a DAT recorder. It turns the dow to remove unwanted glitches in say the same word, this is a much a recording or to remove whole harder task for electronics to achieve. audio signal into a sequence of digital numbers which represent the instan- phrases. The variation in the waveforms of taneous volume of the signal at a parSections of the sound file can be two people saying the same word will ticular. point in time. cut and pasted to another part of the be too great for the computer to recog· These numbers can then be stored file . For example, the phrase "the cat nise easily. and later transformed back into the sat on the mat" can be edited to sound To get around this problem, Microoriginal audio image. Both the sam- "on the mat the cat sat" by simply soft has come up with a simple alterpling rate and the number of bits per cutting the first three words from the native. Seeing that it is only going to 18 S1L1CO N CHIP be a few people who use any one particular machine, it would be simpler to carry a "catalog" of their voice patterns for the command words and to compare the inputs with these catalogued words. However, since a different inflection in one's voice creates what the computer would call a different waveform for the same word, a database of three samples is kept for each word per person. Any number of users can be kept on the database, provided you have enough memory to hold their voice commands. Editing a user's voice database is easy and adding new commands to run new applications is not difficult. The Voice Pilot can be used on a fair range of Windows applications programs, including Aldus PageMaker, WordPerfect for Windows and most of the Microsoft range of Windows application programs. As you can imagine, all this audio processing to carry out commands does slow the machine right down to the point where you may start to think that it would have been quicker to use the mouse in the first place. The point here is that if you want to use this part of the Sound System seriously and speed is very important, you'll need a 486DX at least. Application audio If you're using Microsoft Excel for Windows or Lotus 1-2-3 for Windows, you can also take advantage of Sound System's business audio to enhance you business presentations . Using Sound System, you can click and drag the cassette icon which represents your audio file into your application and have it play the file directly on cue. Event-driven sound Another application of the Sound System software is using it to produce sounds to suit particular events. For example, say you have a PC that is a central machine in ·the office. Everyone comes to this maGhine to download or pick up files that are then worked on elsewhere. A user then comes by and selects a file to delete from the machine. The Sound System can be made to play a message which says, "Do you really want to delete this file, Harry?". You can assign a sound file to just 009theme.wav 01 Otheme. wav 070tHeme.wav 254theme.wav ahhh.wav applause. l'lav belll.wav bell2.wav I I )1 Reserved, Library of ds, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, It The Windows Sound System comes with 52 pre-recorded sound files, including music samples, birds, elephants & industrial tools. The Sound Finder utility lists these files plus any files you have recorded & lets you play them back. about any event that can be detected, including questions, exclamations and asterisks that Windows generates upon entering a command. SoundScapes Most screen savers look OK for a while but then become boring. SoundScape is the aural equivalent and gives you the chance to generate your own sound environment whenever the computer becomes inactive after a set period of time. Sound System already has a number of SoundScapes built-in, including Birds and Jungle. If the computer has not been used for a certain time, the screen goes black and the Sound Sys- The Volume Control menu allows you to mix three sound sources together, as well as adjust volume & balance. Also featured is .a Mute facility. tern fires up and begins playing the sound files. There are about six different bird sounds which are then played at random times, as well as being spaced randomly in the stereo image. Some sounds will appear in the right channel, others in the left, and others as a mixture of the two. Music Box Finally, no sound system would be complete without a CD-ROM interface. You can program the number of tracks and the order in which they are to be played, and even store your favourite CD song lists on your hard disc. Impressions By now, you will not be surprised to learn that we think that the Windows Sound System is a real breakthrough. A sound package of this quality has qeen a long time in the making and will introduce many to the next stage of computing to hit the market. One of its best features is its price. At only $425, the Sound System is one of the lowest priced serious sound cards on the market. If you're looking for a sound card that does more than just make pretty sounds for games, then this is the one to go for. SC MAY 1993 19