Instructions for using the Real World Rhythm Explorer

Record Sound	To record a new sound, open the FILE menu and click NEW RECORDING... This will open the New Recording Dialog box which allows you to select the duration of the sound you would like to record. Simply move the slider to set the duration from 1-10 seconds long. Then press ENTER and you are ready to record! To make your recording, press the RECORD button. This immediately starts the recorder. You will know that you are being recorded by the flashing status indicator. This indicator counts down from 10 to 0 to display roughly how much time you have remaining. The count down will always decrement from 10 to 0 regardless of the duration of the recording you have chosen. If you press the RECORD button again, you will record over the previous sound, so be careful!
Play Sound	After you have made a recording, simply press the PLAY button to listen to it! If you check the LOOP SOUND box, the sound will repeat until you press the STOP button or un-check the LOOP SOUND box
Save Sound	You can save your recording to your computer by going to the FILE menu, selecting SAVE and then choosing SAVE SOUND. This will open a dialog box which allows you to name the sound and chose where to store it. It is recommended that you store the file with the suffix ".wav" to indicate that it is a sound file.
Open Sound	Once you have saved a sound to the computer, or if you would like to open any other sound files, you can load them into the Real World Rhythm Explorer by going to the FILE menu, selecting OPEN and choosing OPEN SOUND. This will open a file dialog box from which you can locate the sound you would like to load. Once you have found it, either highlight the file and press OPEN or simply double-click the file you would like to load. Please note that you can only load sound files from this option, so only select files which end in ".wav" of ".aiff".
Input Time Points	Now that you have either recorded or loaded a sound file into the Explorer, you are ready to exaggerate its rhythmic qualities. To input a sequence of time points, press the INPUT TIME POINTS button. You will hear the sound begin to play and will see the status button flash - this means that you are recording inputs! To create a time point, click the TIME POINT! button. This will register a time point at that instant in the sound file. Once the sound has finished, the software will collect the input time points and will display them in the lower panel. Note that duration marks are in black with labels which correspond to the duration of the sound in seconds. Now you will see mountains which peak at the points where you entered a given time point. If you again press the INPUT TIME POINTS button you will immediately overwrite the existing points and can input a new set of time points in the same manner as before.
Hear the Time Point Exaggeration	Now that a sound file is loaded into the Explorer, along with a time point sequence, you can chose to have those time points distort the original file! The mountains which are drawn along the bottom illustrate a volume curve which will be applied to the original soundfile. To play the sound with the time points, select the Apply Time Point Exaggerations checkbox. Then press the PLAY button. You will easily hear how the time points bring out the rhythm that you entered. You will hear a rise and swell in the volume of the sound which corresponds to the time point graphic. To hear the original sound, un-check the Apply Time Point Exaggerations checkbox and press PLAY
Adjust Time Point Exaggeration	Once you have recorded a sequence of time points, you can adjust the degree to which those time points will distort the original sound file. To make this adjustment, move the slider to the right to increase or to the left to decrease the severity of the exaggeration. You will see the time point peaks smooth or sharpen according to movement of the slider, and when you play the sound you will hear a proportionally smooth or jagged rise and fall in the volume of the sound. Moving the slider to the right will create a very abrupt volume change while moving it to the right will create an increasingly gradual change. Note as well that when you move the slider to the right, the volume curves will sometimes overlap. The volume will drop in proportion to the depth of the resulting valleys.
Save Time Points	Just as you are able to save soundfiles to your computer, you can also save a time point sequences and the exaggeration factor. To save a time point sequence, go to the FILE menu, choose SAVE and finally select SAVE TIME POINTS. Just as when saving a soundfile, this will allow you to save the time points to any location on your computer. It is recommended that you apply a ".tim" suffix to the filename to indicate that this is a time point sequence file.
Save Exaggerated Sound	Once you have played a sound and applied a time point exaggeration to it, you can save the resulting distorted sound to your computer just as you are able to save the original sound To save the exaggerated soundfile, go to the FILE menu, choose SAVE and then choose SAVE RHYTHMICALLY EXAGGERATED SOUND. This will open a file dialog box allowing you to select where you would like to save the file and what you would like to name it. Just as when saving a normal soundfile, you should append the soundfile name with the suffix ".wav"
Open Time Points	Similar to the process of opening a sound file, you can also load a time point sequence file from your computer. To do so, go to the FILE menu, choose OPEN and then choose OPEN TIME POINTS. This will open a file dialog box allowing you to select the file you would like to open. You can only open time point files from this dialog box, so only choose file which end with the ".tim" suffix.
Overlay Sounds and Time Points	It is important to note that a given time point sequence is not necessarily tied to a soundfile. This means that you can mix and match at will! After you have recorded and saved a few sounds and time point sequences, try opening a soundfile and then opening an unrelated time point sequence. This allows you to hear rhythmic exaggerations made with one sound applied to a completely different sound. Note that the durations of the sounds and time point sequences don't have to match. Try opening a time point sequence. Then record a 4 second sound. Then open a 6 second sound. The time scale along the bottom will change with the different sound durations, but the rhythmic time sequence will preserve its proportions, just scaling across different lengths of time.