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PART I1I SHARING YOUR WORK
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. mswmm (Microsoft Movie Media Maker)
Proz
.mp3
Microsoft Movie Media Maker is Mi- crosoft’s proprietary format. It is also designed to work with slide shows, movies, and audio.
MP3 is an audio-encoding format that compresses audio files, by remov-
ing the higher and lower parts of the sound frequencies.
ProTools
.m4a/mp5 (MPEG 4 Audio File Formats)
A cross platform (Mac/PC), ProTools is a professional audio application program made by DigiDesign (now owned by AVID). This application al- lows you to layer tracks, apply effects, mix, work with virtual instruments, and do just about anything with audio.
M4A and MP4 shrink down the size, but without requiring licenses or pay- ments associated with some MP3s.
Apple’s GarageBand
Pro Tools. This screen shot shows the Main Document Window. The purple, green, and orange items are Audio Tracks that have their own audio files. The Toolbar provides various tools for recording, playing, moving, and otherwise manipulating Track Parameters, such as panning or volume. The Region Menu on the right shows each portion of each track used in the file. Pro Tools edits nonlinearly, which gives you the ability to manipulate files without changing the originals.
WMA, Microsoft’s proprietary au-
dio format, works really well on its native players (like Windows Media Player), but it may not work on other programs/systems not designed by Microsoft.
A multitrack editor, recorder, and syn- thesizer that comes with Apple’s iLife Suite, GarageBand is easy to use. The application’s focus on looping chunks of music lets non-musicians build complex and very satisfying original compositions.
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)
A GarageBand document window holds Virtual Instrument and Audio File tracks to the left and positions a Project Layout Window in the center. Audio files can be “dragged” into the project or can be recorded directly with a built-in or external microphone. Sounds can be created from MIDI instruments and can be played live with the Musical Typing Keyboard, which allows you to play notes live with your computer. The Matrix Editor Window (center, bottom) lets you change charac- teristics of notes after you’ve played them on the keyboard. The Track Information Window allows you to change parameters of entire tracks by adding effects or changing the instrument itself.
.aiff (Audio Interchange File Format)
MIDI is the standard for synthesizers and virtual instruments. It represents values for a note’s volume, pitch, length, and in some cases timbre (quality/type of sound).
AIFF was developed by Apple and is now widely used on all platforms. It is uncompressed, which means it will be a large file.
.avi (Audio Video Interleave)
.wav (Wave Form Audio)
AVI was developed by Windows.
As with WMA, it’s proprietary. As
with MP3, M4A, and MP4, it’s com- pressed. But if you’re going to work in PowerPoint, it works really well.
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CHAPTER 5: SLIDE SHOWS
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WAV was developed by Microsoft and IBM. This is the main format for PCs but is also widely used on all plat- forms.
.wma (Windows Media Audio)