Tips & Tricks from Seneschal

This page contains descriptions and links to files that help you to use your SonicStudio v5 more efficiently. By the way, they're free! If you find these files useful, please email me a short note telling me what you think, pro and con, as well as a bit about your work environment. This will help me improve these offerings in the future.

Raw PDF files are provided for direct viewing in your browser. Adobe Acrobat Reader is needed to open many of these documents. Version 4.0.5 of Acrobat is current. If you have the Acrobat plugin for your browser, then you can open the PDF documents directly, to read or save on your local disk.

The downloadable files linked to this page are BinHex encoded and Stuffit compressed. For Mac visitors, decompressing should be automatic if you have the current version. Windows visitors can both decode and decompress the files with Stuffit Expander/UnStuff PC for DOS, available free from Aladdin's web site. Note that version 5.5 of Stuffit Expander is current.

Please be advised that, though these files are offered free of charge, all material is copyrighted by Seneschal. These files are not shareware, and cannot be posted in newsgroups, included in ftp sites, or included on CD-ROM, disk or any other media or method of distribution without prior written permission from Seneschal.

Looking for a compact, easy-to-digest user manual for SonicStudio? Sorry, you won't find it here! What you will find is a compact, easy-to-digest collection of the most useful information on SonicStudio v5. This document assumes you can get through the basics and need to go to the next level. Even "old hats" may find one or two useful things in there.

In addition to this self-help tutorial, the expanded stand alone companion glossary is available as well. This allows you to look up a definition while reading the Handbook. Download time at 24 kbaud is around 6 minutes.

Note that this version of the Operations Handbook is not print enabled. If you need a hard copy, a printable version is available for a nominal fee. Please call 415-346-7713 or email for additional information.

The two Extension Manager sets in this folder are useful for improving the speed and stability of the Classic application running within OS 10. These sets work well for me and make a good point of departure for your optimization efforts.

To install them, first copy the two files, Mac OS 10 Base and Mac OS 10 + MS to your local disk. Next, move the two files into the System Folder > Preferences > Extension Manager Preferences folder. Then, restart under Classic by selecting the appropriate System Folder in the Startup Disk pane of the System Preferences. Classic System Folders have icons with a “9” rather than an “X” on them.

Once in Classic, select Apple Menu > Control Panels > Extension Manager and select either set from the popup selector at the top of the control panel. Since your Mac is unique, you may have more or less extensions than are specified in the set. So, a warning dialog may appear asking if you want to save a list of missing extensions. Do so if you like.

Restart the computer once again to make sure the file functions correctly then, select you OS 10 System Folder in the Startup Disk control panel. Restart one last time and you should notice a reduction in boot time, especially if you’ve been using a default Startup Set.

You may want to print these instructions before attempting this procedure…enjoy!

Note: These file are provided without a warrantee of any kind, so please use them sensibly.

Freeware by Dave Ackerman - The version of Deliverance running under Classic is a MacPerl "hack" to automate the process of creating CD tray cards from Sonic PQ Logs. That version requires that you download MacPerl - see his site for more information...

Freeware by Yours Truly - This is an MS Excel spreadsheet that resulted from an article in the July 2000 issue of Surround Professional by Dr. Peter d'Antonio. It was called "Minimizing Acoustic Distortion in Critical Listening Rooms Part 1" and discussed some basic acoustical concepts. After reading it, I thought, "Gee, wouldn't it be nice to have a spread that cranked this formula?"

So, I made one. Being version one, it has a bunch of problems but, hey, I don't have the time to make it perfect!

…You plug in the length, width and height and it pukes out the 1st, 2nd and 3rd axial, tangential and oblique modal frequencies. gives you some idea of your problem standing waves...

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