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Audioscope Basics


Audioscopes - pretty lines of color undulating to the rhythm of the night. My, oh my, what a beautiful sight!

Audioscopes are a WebTV-only function. It's nice to know that there are a few things we can do that computers can't, don't you think? Audioscopes are used with music and they are commonly referred to simply as "scopes".

Here's the audioscope tag shown with 1 attribute per line:
<audioscope
height=?
width=?
bgcolor="?"
leftcolor="?"
rightcolor="?"
leftoffset=?
rightoffset=?
gain=?
maxlevel="true"
border=?>

<Audioscope opens the audioscope.

Height is entered in pixels.

Width is entered in pixels.

Bgcolor is the backgorund color of your scope. Enter a color name or a hex code.

Leftcolor is the color of the line that represents the left channel of your sound. Enter a colorname or a hex code.

Rightcolor is the color of the line that represents the right channel of your sound. Enter a colorname or a hex code.

Typically leftcolor & rightcolor are different from each other so you can see both channels easily.

Leftoffset determines distance above or below the horizontal center of your scope for your left channel. Enter a number of pixels.

Rightoffset determines distance above or below the horizontal center of your scope for your right channel. Enter a number of pixels.

Typically leftoffset is negative (-) and rightoffset is positive (+) & usually they are the same number of pixels, one line above center & the other line the same distance below center, but you can put them anywhere you want inside your scope.

Negative (-) values will be above the center. Positive (+) values will be below the center.

Gain is amplitude. It determines how much of an affect the sound has on your audioscope. Low gain amounts will give you gently undulating waves. High gain amounts will "clip" the waves in your scope and square them off as they hit the top & bottom of your scope. This clipping effect shows up best when the bgcolor of your scope matches the bgcolor of your page.

Maxlevel is optional. It will place a line at the top of the waves that you see as the music plays

Border is optional. Enter a value in pixels

Here are some songs to play while you watch the scopes:
Affair In San Miguel
Boogie Down
Conga
Latin Dance
Rock With You
Salsa
Shining Star
Singing In The Rain
Someone To Watch Over Me
This Kiss
What A Fool Believes
You're My Everything

Stop the music

Here's a basic audioscope that we'll play with to see what the different attributes do:

Effect of gain (Offset=5)

Gain="1"
Maxlevel="true"
Border="10"
No Maxlevel
Border="10"



Gain="3" Gain="5"



Gain="10" Gain="20"



Gain="0", a Special Case
Setting the gain at "0" will give you a "digtal readout" instead of "analog waves".


An interesting thing about zero-gain scopes is that you don't see the scope colors when there is no music. Rise is an example of using tall narrow zero-gain scopes together.


Negative gain
Negative gain values can also be used, They just look upside down from positive gain values.

Here is the same scope with positive & negative gains.

Gain="2"
Gain="-2"



A "reflection" scope can be made by stacking a positive gain scope on top of a negative gain scope. The top & bottom are mirrors of each other. For this example, the leftcolor is the same as the bgcolor so you only see one channel.

Reflection scope



Code    Example Sig



Effect of offset (Gain="2")

Leftoffset="-5"
Rightoffset="+5"
Leftoffset="-10"
Rightoffset="+10"



Leftoffset="-15"
Rightoffset="+15"
Leftoffset="-20"
Rightoffset="+20"



Leftoffset="-15"
Rightoffset="0"
Leftoffset="0"
Rightoffset="+15"



Audioscope Builder
Here's an Audioscope Builder that generates audioscope codes for you. Just plug in your numbers. You can enter your own music, so take the URL of your favorite song along with you to see what your scope will look like with your own music. Next, hit the View Audioscope button & you will see your scope & its code ready to copy & paste.

Audioscope Art
Audioscopes can be large or small. You can combine scopes made with different colors & sizes to make shapes. This is an artform by itself & there is a newsgroup devoted entirely to this artform. To learn how to make this type of audioscope, visit Scoop On Scopes.

The Amazing MsV (aka MrsK)
Want to see something really amazing? While most audioscope artists use scopes to shape their pieces, MsV uses them in more subtle ways by placing small scopes on top of images. You can see these at MsV's Magic & More.

MsV gives detailed insturctions on how to make audioscope art in this style at Scopes By Design. Here's an example for Halloween called "Do Not Enter". It uses audioscopes for the eyes on the skull & the monster at the end of the walk, and also to make the "patio lights" that line the path.

For more information, visit:
Audioscope Art Pages
Dale's Scope Trix
Audioscope On The Fly
Audioscopes For WebTV (Warpspeed)
Circle Scope Maker
Flo's Attributes
More on audiocope attributes
Flo's Offsets
More on offsets
Flo's Scopes Playground
A great collection of scopes in different styles with links to other resources.
NameScopes Tutorial
Scopes By Design
MsV's Awesome Tutorial
Scope School (Worf)
Scoop On Scopes


Need tunes for scopes? Visit Gnu-bee.com

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