Help

Help

Help Screen for Version 7.0

To print this file, right click and choose Print in the Help mode. Alternatively, go to the Faslo directory, click on fasloHelp.htm and choose Print from the browser menu.

Program Description

When Open Files button is clicked, it looks for .wav, .mp3 and *.m3u files. wav files conform to Microsoft WAV format and can be compressed or uncompressed. If they are compressed, your system should have the proper codec installed for decoding. Any mp3 files can be played (all versions and layers) and m3u files are lists of mp3 and wav files. Note by the proprietary definition of m3u files, only mp3 files can be included but in our case you may include compressed/uncompressed wave files. In m3u files, specify the path name where the files reside. Also m3u file can contain m3u files which in turn have to specify playable mp3 or wav files and cannot contain any m3u files. Open URL button opens a dialog for specifying internet files. The dialog box is capable of alpha-blending; left-clicking on the bottom, right area (where it says "faslo") makes the dialog box more opaque whereas right-clicking on the same area makes it more transparent. This feature is only available on Win2K and up (like XP) but may not be available on Windows 9X.

Playing the Files

Files can be played by selecting the file from the dialog box that appears after clicking Open Files or Open URL button, and pressing the Play button. Pressing the Pause button will pause the play but the file will continue to download for internet files and be decoded for compressed mp3 and wav formats. Play can be resumed by pressing Play or Pause key. Stop key will stop playing, downloading and decoding and reinitialize to beginning. When playing m3u list files, Play will play the next file in the list. If it contains multiple files, a message box will pop up notifying the end of the list.

Files can be looped if Loop is selected. This has no effect when playing m3u files. Note the slider can be moved to any position while playing giving the "radio station tuning" effect. The Rev radio button will instantly reverse the play (the tick mark will appear) and pressing the button again (the tick mark will disappear) will play normally.

Files can also be played by dragging and dropping to the dialog box. Play key will play the selection. Note you may play files with wav, mp3 or m3u extensions.

Altering the Speed

Speed of playback can be altered by using the speed slider and clicking Slider button. Speed can be set anywhere between 400 (4 times the normal speed) to 50 (1/2 the normal speed) but best quality is attainable in the ranges of 200 to 60. There are several factors that can affect the quality such as how fast or slow the speaker is speaking. Quality can be fine tuned selecting the Block Length slider normally between 50 to 150. At low speeds (like 50 to 60) Block Length may have to be set low (like 30 ~ 50) to reduce reverberation. There are preset S, N, and F buttons that have stored values for slow, normal and fast speed. Slider button can be used to enter values for the speed thru' the Speed slider. S and F are set to 0.7 and 1.5 initially. They can be changed by holding the right click button on the mouse on the S or F button until a message box pops up. There the new values can be entered and these values are remembered for these keys. Selecting or deselecting Tempo will restore or not restore the tempo.

Voice Alteration Mode

For pitch changes (like male/female voice alteration) use the Tempo. Unselect Tempo and change to higher speed for a higher pitch and lower for a lower pitch. Thus to get a female voice from male, deselect Tempo, set the speed to 115 and click on Play. To get a lower pitch set the speed to 90 and lower. Other voice alteration controls are available by pressing the Voice Effects button at the bottom center of the dialog. When this button is pressed the dialog will look as in the following:

faslow3x.jpg (15174 bytes)

There are three Select buttons that correspond to three different effects. For each effect the corresponding Select needs to be selected and a click mark should appear. The effects are explained in the following:
1. The Input Section and Output Section slider controls can be set between 4 and 20 and usually a "quack" like alteration can be achieved setting input to 14 and Output to 6. Note usually Input Section has to be higher than Output Section to get this kind of distortion. Click on the Select that corresponds to the Input Section/Output Section and play ZX.WAV file to see the effect. As the slider is dragged, pause intermittently to note the effect on the voice without releasing the needle. Also once the slider is highlighted, you can use cursor keys.
2. The Pitch slider changes the pitch in real time (note the difference between this and the effect from the changed Tempo lies in the output time - the output time remains the same for the Pitch effect). Click on the Select corresponding to Pitch and use the Pitch slider to change pitch. Make sure Selects corresponding to other effects are ticked off - otherwise you will get a combination of the effects.
3. The Shift slider inserts a constant frequency shift. Click on the Select corresponding to Shift and use the Shift slider to see the effect. With musical instruments you will get some weird effects.
Note when multiple Selects are made, you will get a combination of the effects along with Slow/Fast/Normal/Slider effect, Rev and Tempo depending on the state of the radio buttons.

There are presets set and by clicking the preset keys one can have different effects preprogrammed. By placing the mouse in the Presets box and right-clicking the mouse (press the right button until the dialog box pops up), the presets can be altered. When the dialog box pops up, you can change the effects for the presets. Normally N is reserved to store normality.

NOTE THAT THE VOICE ALTERATION IS PROVIDED FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND SHOULD BE USED AS SUCH.

Recording the File

If you want to make a recording of the altered speech, click on Record button. The program will save the recording as a wave file with extension wav and a file name that consists of the original file name, its speed and a time stamp. As an example recording file while playing zx.wav at a slower speed of .70 will produce zx.wav_70_1069955439.wav. The last ten digits will vary since this represents the time at which the recording is started. If you play a new file, a new recording will be generated with the new file name, its speed and start time of recording. Click on Record again to stop recording. The demo mode restrictions apply in the sense that only the first recorded minute will be audible. If you are really serious about recording the output sessions, it is highly recommended to get Total Recorder (available on the internet at http://www.HighCriteria.com and very economically priced) which will record sessions in MP3 and other formats.

Demo Mode

In demo mode, all functions are intact. The only difference is that only the first minute of the selection is played. In the Rev mode, you will hear the last minute. After the first minute of audio, P in the top right hand corner will turn red. To see reversing effects, experiment on an audio clip shorter than one minute (like jx.wav or zx.wav). For clips longer than one minute (like sim.mp3), you may hear only in one mode - normal or reverse mode.

Registration

In the registered mode, you will hear the entire selection. Click on the Register button and enter the password sent to you in the email. The password will look like xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx and it is best to cut and paste it from your email. With Microsoft making their media player freely available, it is strongly suggested that the interested users register so that small, independent developers can exist and offer products in a competitive environment. To those who cannot afford (though we try to price it at an economical price), you may request a free copy with an explanation how you intend to use. This request should be directed to Faslo and you can get the email address in the main page at http://www.faslo.com

General Considerations and Helpful Tips

Internet connections can be slow to make even when you have a high speed access. The top right hand corner shows the status of the dowload thread (R), decoder thread (D) and play thread (P). When you stop the play, you will see the threads being deactivated. If you have slow internet connection, it is advisable to use the Stop key to make sure threads are all killed and then use Play to play the next selection. Normally this is not necessary but recommended in cases where your computer or internet connection is extremely slow. During pause, P will be seen blinking. In demo mode, P will turn red after the first minute indicating that the selection is played a a low volume.

A Guided Tour

Click on Open Files, select file jx.wav and click Play. When it starts playing click one of the keys S, N or F in the right hand side. Speed will change based on the key clicked. Also you may change the speed by going to the Speed slider and slide for twice the speed. Click on the Slider to take effect. If you are not playing, click on Play. Select test.m3u file to play a list of files. Click Play to select the next selection. Click Stop to stop the playing of the list files and watch the letters disappearing on the top right hand corner. To play an internet file, use your Microsoft Internet Explorer to go to the site http://www.spiritofsinatra.com/pages/mp3.html and right click on one of the mp3 selections like Leaving on a Jet Plane. You will see a drop down menu from which select Copy Shortcut. Click on Open URL and in the dialog box, do a shift-insert to copy the short cut into the dialog box. You should see the name of the internet file and then click Play to play the file. Alternatively, click on Open URL, and type in http://www.spiritofsinatra.com/media/mp3/moon.mp3 . Click Play to play. Click on S to slow down to 60 % speed. Hold the right mouse button down on S button, until a pop up dialog appears. Select a different speed. You may have to declick and click again to get the new speed. Play with different selections like zx.wav, jx.wav, sim.mp3, .. to get a feel by clicking Normal/Slow/Fast/Slider buttons, Rev and Tempo. Keep the Loop on to keep the selection playing in a loop.

For a recording of file, click on Record (after opening the Voice Effects drawer by clicking on Voice Effects). Select the speed button, say Slow at 70 % of the speed and a file to play, e.g., zx.wav. Click on Play and Stop after a while. Choose jx.wav , Play and Stop after a while. If you look at the file folder where the program is, you will see two new files zx.wav_70_xxxxxxxxxx.wav and jx.wav_70_xxxxxxxxxx.wav where xxxxxxxxxx is a time stamp which depends on when the recording was started. The file will be stored in the current directory - which is normally C:\Faslo after the startup. Note as mentioned before, we strongly suggest Total Recorder to record files as this product can record the files in compressed formats like MP3.

For voice effects, click on Voice Effects to see the effects dialog box. To see various effects, select a file say jx.wav. Click on Play, go to the Presets and select 1, 2, 3, .. to see different effects. Press on N to restore to normal. Get good WAV or MP3 files for best performance.

There are a lot of sites devoted to reverse speech technologies (Google or Yahoo to search for "reverse speech"). In the Faslo player, select a file say zx.wav and play. During the play (after 10 seconds) click on Rev to hear in reverse, and click on Rev again to normal operation. Note how the needle reverses during the reverse play. You can use other features to speed up/slow down and other effects during the reverse operation.