FOR RADIO...SPORTS...DJ...PA...LIVE EVENTS
WELCOME!
This is the home of the digital audio playback program
Sports Sounds Pro
Now with Instant Play
and Digital Signal Processing (DSP)!!!
"For that Total Sports Experience"
(YOU CAN NOW PURCHASE ON-LINE USING PAYPAL)
Sports Sounds Pro 5.0 (Build 14)
Released February 28, 2008
LATEST RELEASE DETAILS!
Sports Sounds Pro 5.0 (Build 14), Released February 28, 2008:
- In "Add Sound Button", FLAC and OGG file types were added to the selection criteria.
- When you open a new set file, its name is now displayed in the title line (the top line of the main screen) provided you
have not setup a Personalized name.
- Personalize now is a property of the .set file and no longer application wide. This allows you to personalize each .set
file.
- USER INTERFACE CHANGE: The "Clear Cue" has been removed from the right click menu of a sound button when you
are in the Cue page. It now appears on the right click menu of the CUE button in the Control Panel. This brings it in
compliance with how the
page buttons work.
- Under Setup/Options/System a selection for Mono or Stereo mode as been added.
Sports Sounds Pro (SSP) will default to Stereo mode. When in Mono mode, an Mono indicator will be displayed in the Control Panel.
- USER INTERFACE CHANGE: Made changes to the Custom Cue Control. In prior versions, when the user had a custom cue in effect, SSP would indicate
that by displaying an asterisk (*) before the caption in the button. Since the implementation of Custom Cue Control a couple of other
features have been added, namely the ability
to set a Volume level and the ability to flag a sound to Loop and their indicators show up as either "v" or "L" flags
in the bottom of the sound button. Custom Cue Control has now been changed so it will display a "C" in the bottom of the
sound button. This makes all the indicator flags consistent.
- Changes have been made to the ten band Equalizer. Prior versions of SSP had the two bottom bands set at 32Hz and 64Hz. SSP
utilizes
calls to Microsoft Direct X to implement the Equalizer. It was discovered that the lower end calls were not changing the BASS but
were affecting the high end sounds. After experimenting, the lowest setting that had an effect was 80Hz. So the bottom three
band settings have been changed. They used to be 32Hz, 64Hz and 125Hz. They now are 80Hz, 100Hz, and 150Hz. Some small tweaking
has also been done to the presets (Rock, Country, etc.).
- An extensive amount of internal changes have been made due to a unique condition experienced by one of the Major League Baseball
teams that use SSP. SSP uses some very large internal tables to hold all its button assignments (this is what gives it its speed).
SSP assigns variables to indicate what sound is being played. For this example we will say "A" is used for
the Group, "B" is used for the Page, and "C" is used for the sound button. When you add a sound or copy and paste a sound or a page,
those functions also used the same three variables (A-B-C).
Now the problem. A user was making up his play lists for his next
game immediately before game time while the audience was in the seats. He had a page playing as a "PlayList" while he was doing this.
The conflict occurred when he was in the middle of copying and pasting and the "Playlist" had a song
end and then triggered the next song. Both "PlayList" and the add, copy, paste, etc. functions all used the same three variables (A-B-C)
and PlayList was stomping on these variables causing his copy/pastes to end up not where he wanted them. Unfortunately, this
did not happen every time nor was any other user experiencing the same problem, which made it very difficult to find.
It took several phone calls to find out exactly what the user was doing when the problem occurred. The timing had to be
just so for a song to end while the user was in the middle of another function.
To rectify this, the
edit/maintenance functions have been separated from the "playing" functions and they now use a different set of variables to control
their activity. (This is known in the business as a design bug. I failed to realize an end user would use the system in this way.
The bug has been there since day one but it is now gone.)
- Corrected a bug that happened when you were playing a sound using a Hot Key and you played another sound with another Hot Key,
before the first sound ended, the first sound was not turning red, it continued to be displayed in green.
-Several Releases ago, the Find screens were modified to accomodate a DJ who used it to program his CUE page with requests submitted
beforehand by the Wedding Party. He didn't like it when the Find screen closed after each Find so it was changed to keep it open.
While this made his life easier, several other users objected to having to click on two buttons
to exit out of the Find routines. Now the "Close" button on the Matches Found screen will exit the Find routines and a new button
has been added called "New Find" which will return the user to the Find screen.
- SSP will now recognize Windows Vista (Under Help/Show Windows Version).
- Corrected a bug in "Talk". When you went into "Talk" mode and while in it you hit Pause and then Pause again to resume, the sound
would resume but when you hit "Talk" to come out of "Talk" mode, the volume stayed reduced. Now "Talk" will restore the volume
regardless if you paused in the middle of it.
What is INSTANT PLAY!
Up until now you only had one choice to eliminate dead "air" at the beginning of a sound clip and that was to
edit that clip or use Sports Sounds Pro's Custom Cue Feature. Now it can be done automatically. When
you activate Instant Play, Sports Sounds Pro first opens the sound clip file as a data file and
scans it for the first sound that exceeds a pre-determined threshold (you control the threshold setting). It then
starts playing the file from that point.
A test sound clip file is now available called "TakeMeTest.mp3". The "TakeMeTest.mp3" sound clip is a sound clip of
"Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and it has dead "air" or silence on the
front of it. Try it with "Instant Play" on and off and hear the difference.
TakeMeTest.mp3, RIGHT CLICK on it to download this file
Sports Sounds Pro on the Radio!
In the Spring of 2005 I was contacted by Mr. Evan Nine, the Producer of a nation-wide two hour daily radio show called
Steve Crowley's American Scene.
His son is a batboy at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter Florida (where they use
Sports Sounds Pro) and he happened to see the program in use and was very impressed by it. He told his staff that they
needed it for their broadcast and they obtained a copy. He then emailed me inviting me to be a guest on the show.
On Friday, June 24, 2005, I was interviewed by Mr. Evan Nine. Click on the link below to listen to that interview.
Sports Sounds Pro Radio Interview
NEWS!...HAPPENINGS!...NEWS!...HAPPENINGS!...NEWS!
SPORTS SOUNDS PRO AND THE PBR
On January 21, 2008, I received a phone call from Mitch Ivey, a professional rodeo soundman, who was driving to Northern Virginia
from Texas to do a PBR (Professional Bull Riding) event being held at the Patriot Center on the campus of George Mason
University (where I announce baseball). From prior phone conversations, he knew I had never attented a rodeo or bull riding event and he
called to invite me to the event. Northern Virginia is a suburb of Washington, D.C., and it is an urban area. I was not sure what
size audience an event like this would draw. As it turned out, the crowds were huge and the place was more than 3/4 full
(it holds around 10,000).
At the event, my wife and I sat directly behind
Mitch and watched him conduct a high energy, smoothly transitioned show. He had two laptops, both running Sports Sounds Pro, and the
event featured almost continuous music with Mitch rapidly changing between tunes. There were a couple of other pluses. The Show Announcer
turned out to be another man from Texas (Terry Starnes) who is also a user of Sports Sounds Pro. I had never met
Terry before but had spoken to him a couple of times via phone. Terry was assisted in his announcing duties by a living legend in the
sport of bull riding, eight times World Champion Bull Rider, Donnie Gay, who I also got to meet.
The event was a first class production with strobes, fog machines, and an in-rink clown/comedian by the name of
Gizmo.
Needless to say, I had a great time.
I got to meet the owner of Frontier Rodeo Co.,
Jerry Nelson, along with some of the nicest people you could ever meet, the Bull Riders, Bull
Fighters, and the various crew members. I was extremely impressed, I returned the following day on Sunday to see the show again.
My thanks to Mitch Ivey, Terry Starnes, and the rest of the staff.
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SPORTS SOUNDS PRO ON MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL
Sports Sounds Pro made its debut on Monday Night Football on August 13, 2007 in the San Francisco 49ers versus the
Denver Broncos game.
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NOW PLAY iTUNES AND PROTECTED DRM FILES IN SPORTS SOUNDS PRO
One of Sports Sounds Pro's users sent me an email about this program. It is called
SoundTaxi and sells for under $20.00. I have purchased it and tried it on both music files purchased from Wal-Mart and iTunes. It handled them both.
It takes the protected file and produces an unprotected mp3 file. These unprotected mp3 files will work in Sports Sounds Pro and
other mp3 players.
SoundTaxi unprotects and converts music files from:
iTunes,
Napster,
Yahoo Music,
MusicMatch,
MSNMusic,
MusicLoad,
Rhapsody,
MTV / urge,
MusicNow,
BuyMusic,
AOL Music,
Virgin Digital,
Sony Connect,
Beon Music,
Peer Impact,
iMusica,
Wal-Mart,
AOL MusicNow,
connect-europe
akuma,
Listen JP,
ongen,
hmv,
Bigpond Music,
Soundbuzz,
digirama,
imusica,
cdigix,
cingular mMode,
puretracks,
metro tunes,
and fnac.
SoundTaxi's website is: http://www.SoundTaxi.info
 DOWNLOAD KATY BENKO'S NATIONAL ANTHEM
Under the "Information" section you can download a great version of the National
Anthem performed by Katy Benko.
ATTENTION SPORTS ANNOUNCERS!
Another good tip from a Sports Sounds Pro user. Here is a great free program that lets you normalize (set all the volumes the same)
your mp3 sounds. It can do some other interesting things to. It is called
mp3gain.
Another site you want to visit is called All Time Greatest DJ Drops Library. It contains about 100 free sounds you
can use in your sports production including both trumpet and organ charges, cheers, etc. Click
here to go to that site.
Another web site is called SportsAnnouncing.com
They have started a service called "The Announcer's Forum" where announcers can share their game production secrets.
Announcers can submit songs or effects they use for various situations in different sports. This is a great way to obtain new
ideas to keep your production fresh and to share your ideas with others. This is a MUST VISIT site for all announcers. Just go
to SportsAnnouncing.com and click on "The Forum".
Another great site you will want to visit is a forum on Yahoo Groups called Sports-Music_Programming. It is a forum where Sports
Announcers at various levels share their information. Click
here to go to that site.
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Features:
-- 4,320 Sound buttons
-- All sound buttons are user settable
-- Custom Cue Control
-- Instant Play Feature
-- Color-coded backgrounds
-- Easy to use and friendly user interface
-- Two styles of sound level meters (Panel or Bar)
-- Direct X technology
-- Output device selection (for those with multiple sound cards)
-- User configuration options like colors, sample rate, output device selection
-- Master Volume Control
-- Individual Volume Level Settings
-- Loop sounds - manual selection
-- Loop sound - can be assigned and saved
-- Plays FLAC, mp3, mp2, mp1, ogg, wav, and wma files
-- Any of the 72 pages can be made a Playlist
-- Hot Keys and Hot Key Management Tools
Hot Key Indicator, Pop-up hot key assignment reminders, Hot Key list functions
-- Hot Key Keyboard map
-- Digital Signal Processing (DSP) - Ten Band Equalizer
-- Digital Signal Processing (DSP) - Reverb control
-- Digital Signal Processing (DSP) - Tempo control
-- Digital Signal Processing (DSP) - Pitch control
-- Log File
-- Faders (Fade In, Fade Out, and Cross-Fade)
-- Faders can be automatic or manual
-- Faders can optionally work on Hot Keys
-- Adjustable Fade Rates
-- Adjustable Fade begin positions for automatic fades
-- Adjustable Page and Sound Button Fonts, Color, and Size
-- Visual Sound Progression Bar
-- Highlight Sound Buttons
-- Locate sounds easily with the FIND feature
-- FIND will search sound buttons and/or Notes, option set by user.
-- Copy, Cut, and Paste for Sound Buttons
-- Copy, Cut, and Paste for Pages
-- Sound Buttons can be dragged and dropped
-- Pages can be dragged and dropped
-- A SHUFFLE mode available for all Play List pages
-- Game Clock and separate Timer
-- Automatic Timed Start capability
-- Ability to start and move around anywhere within a sound file
-- The ability to populate multiple sound buttons from multiple files
-- Not enough room in the button for all your text...
You can append Notes to each sound button.
-- "Talk" Button
-- Dynamic Cue
-- Multi-Play (up to five different sounds)
-- Full Screen display (resizeable)
-- Selectable Mono or Stereo Mode
Sample Screen:
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With Sports Sounds Pro, you can now add that same level of fan excitement to your
local team that the major pro teams have. You can easily have INSTANT access to those special
sound effects and music selections that get the fans going WILD and MOTIVATE your team. Automate
your game entertainment and avoid the problem of trying to shuffle multiple cassettes or finding the
right CD track. Replace it with the ease and simplicity of clicking a button on your PC.
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Purpose:
Sports Sounds Pro is a sound playing program that was designed to be used at sporting events, radio,
or other live events. It gives the PA announcer, radio announcer, or sound operator the ability
to quickly and easily add sound effects/music selections to the game or event. Sports Sounds Pro
by the use of colors, allows the operator to tell which sound files have been used, the sound
file currently playing, and which sound files have not been used.
In addition to traditional sporting events such as baseball, basketball, football, volleyball, and
lacrosse, Sports Sounds Pro is currently being used at roller rinks, ice skating rinks,
rodeos, radio stations, live theatre, and corporate training seminars. Links to some of the
users of Sports Sounds Pro can be found under the "Users" section.
System Requirements:
Sports Sounds Pro does not require a lot of processor power. It will run on desktop and laptop PCs
running Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. It should run on any Windows based PC
(except NT) made
within the last five years. A Sound Blaster compatible sound card is required. The program was written for a
video resolution of 800 x 600. A video resolution setting of 1024 x 768 is recommended if you are using any of the scoreboards.
Sports Sounds Pro also requires Direct X version 3 or greater. The heaviest system requirement is a large enough
hard drive to hold all the user's sound files. For those who care, the program was written in Delphi 5.0.
Sound Formats Supported :
Sports Sounds Pro will play .FLAC, .MP3, .MP2, .MP1, OGG, .WAV, and .WMA files. Sports Sounds Pro will NOT
play .midi files. There are a number of conversion programs available on the Internet which will convert .midi files to .wav files.
What do I get when I download Sports Sounds Pro?
The copy of Sports Sounds Pro that you download is the full version of the program.
The downloaded program operates in a DEMO MODE with limited
playback capability. In DEMO MODE, the program will only play back the top row of buttons on the first
three pages of each group.
NO SOUNDS ARE SUPPLIED WITH THE PROGRAM. You supply the sounds with your own MP3 files, .WAV files, WMA files, etc.
What is it going to cost me?
To unlock the program to its full capacity, a registration fee
of $149.95 is required. Once received, the user will be
e-mailed a Registration Key that they enter on the HELP, REGISTER screen. Once entered,
the key will unlock the play functionality for all 4,320 buttons.
The registration of Sports Sounds Pro is being handled by an independent company
called "ShareIt" on their secure server. They are specialists in program
registration and have many payment options, including credit card, check, cash or mail order.
Just click on the menu selection "Purchase On-Line" to complete your purchase.
If you wish to tell me how you intend to use the product,
I would appreciate that. Also, I am open to ideas and suggestions on improvements.
How do I get sounds to use?
Click the "Information" selection on the menu for links to suppliers of sports sounds CDs,
other useful software, and technical information on connecting your pc
to stadium sound systems.
101 Baseball Links
Last Updated: February 28, 2008
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