The Wave Options dialog allows you to do three things:
| · | Select the sound format to use when a new WAV file is opened (but not when a new MP3 file is opened - see File|Open...).
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| · | Select the recording and/or playback devices to be used.
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| · | Select whether variable speed playback (see the Main control panel) preserves pitch or not
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If you change the sound format settings when you have a non-empty file already open, the settings will not take effect until the next time you open a new WAV file.
QuickRecord 3 has support for four WAV file formats built-in: 16-bit PCM, 8-bit PCM, 8-bit A-law compressed and 8-bit µ-law compressed. Other formats are supported by using audio codecs managed by the Windows Audio Compression Manager (ACM). The format to use is selected using the Format selection box.
Built-in formats
For the four built-in formats, you can select an appropriate sampling rate and either mono or stereo recording. The values shown in the picture above are the default values set on installation (standard CD quality recordings). Note that QuickRecord calculates and displays the data rate for the format you have selected, so you can estimate how much disk space a recording of a particular duration will use.
ACM formats
If you select an ACM wave format, the dialog changes:
You must select an ACM format by pressing the Choose format... button to display the standard Windows ACM format select dialog:
You can choose a suitable format using this dialog, then press OK. The selected format will then be displayed under the Choose format... button (see the example above).
Important notes about ACM format selection
1. The ACM format select dialog will most likely include a number of formats you can select that QuickRecord does not, in fact, support. If QuickRecord does not support the format, a dialog will tell you either when you press OK or when you attempt to open a new file with the selected format. There are a number of reasons why this might happen. The most common are:
| · | The selected codec is for playback only. Some installed codecs do not support recording.
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| · | The selected codec is not suitable for WAV files. The most common examples of these are the Windows Media Audio codecs.
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| · | The selected codec will only work with its associated application
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| · | The selected codec does not conform to the ACM specification
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2. The format select dialog will include PCM, CCITT A-law and CCITT u-law formats. Support for these formats is built into QuickRecord 3 and you should use the built-in formats (see above) in preference to the corresponding ACM format.
3. If the format select dialog includes MP3 formats, selecting one of these formats at this point will cause an MP3 format WAV file to be created, not an MP3 file. MP3 files can be created using the File|Open... dialog.
Selecting the recording and/or playback devices
Changes to the recording or playback devices take effect the next time that recording or playback is started. The options available depend on your installation. Choose the 'Default' device to have Windows choose an appropriate device for you.
Selecting devices other than the 'Default' devices will restrict the type of file format that you can record and playback. Do not select a specific device unless you have a good reason to do so. Note that you can use the Windows Control Panel to choose the preferred devices to use as 'Default'.