CLIPPER is JAGUAR's built-in sound editor that can be used to create audio clips from wideband recordings.
When you have the relevant audio material in the CLIPPER window, you can play/edit/process the clip before saving it (see the options below). The clip name is of the standard JAGUAR format, but you can customize it in the JAGUAR CUSTOM level. The clip name is displayed on the bottom of the CLIPPER window, and this name can be edited. But do not change the WAV/MP3 suffix here, go to CLIPPER > FORMAT to do that.
CLIPPER can be started during the playback by pressing the "C" key, or by clicking the TOOLBAR > SCISSORS icon, or from STATION MENU > CLIPPER. Another press or click on the relevant key/icon/menu will stop the flow of the audible sound to the CLIPPER editor window. You can also click STOP on the CLIPPER menu. If you want, you can add more than one segment of audio to the same clip, using any of the ways described above to start CLIPPER.
You can play the audio clip by clicking on PLAY in the menu, or by clicking the waveform in the editor window at any position. You can also highlight an area in the waveform to limit the playback or editing to that specific area. Clicking the waveform outside the highlighted area will remove the highlight. If you edit the waveform without highlighting any particular area, the entire audio clip will be subject to these edits.
The CLIPPER menu contains the following options (the GAIN, NOISE, TEMPO and PITCH buttons trigger a vertical slider for controlling the "power" of the function):
FORMAT: Select the audio clip format (WAV | MP3). Note: FILEMAIL clips are always sent as MP3.
RESTORE: Cancel all edits you have made and restore the original audio clip.
UNDO: Undo the last edit.
FADE: Standard fade function.
GAIN: Increase/decrease the volume of the audio clip.
NOISE: Remove noise from the audio.
TEMPO: Increase/decrease the speed of the audio.
PITCH: Increase/decrease the pitch of the audio.
COPY>TAIL: Copy the highlighted area to the end of the clip.
CROP: Keep the highlighted area, delete the rest.
CUT: Delete the highlighted area.
When you have finalized your edits, you have the following save options in the menu:
SAVE AS: Select the save folder manually. While saving, you can still change the clip file name.
SAVE: Save your clip to the CLIPS folder in your JAGUAR folder.
SEND>FILEMAIL: Send the clip to your another JAGUAR PC.
PLAY/STOP: Play/stop the audio clip / highlighted area.
EXIT: Close CLIPPER.
CLIPPER ZOOM
CLIPPER contains also a precision tool for bit fiddlers to get the maximum out of the audio:
If an audio area has been highlighted in CLIPPER, it can be zoomed in, even to the sample level. Use the mouse wheel or the left/right arrow keys to switch between FULL AREA, RED AREA, and GREEN AREA.
The GREEN area is the lowest level. You can move the mouse and position the area to the desired audio peak: first, click once to lock the position, then increase or decrease the width of the GREEN area with the mouse wheel or the left/right arrow keys.
You can use the FADE button to eliminate "runaway peaks" (= fade in/ fade out for the RED and GREEN areas)
CUSTOMIZING THE AUDIO CLIP NAME AND FOLDER
If you upgrade to the JAGUAR CUSTOM level, you can customize the default clip name using the custom parameter CLIP_NAME=your_customized_name_format (see the details in the CUSTOM help). You can also override the default clip folder (= "CLIPS" within the JAGUAR installation folder) using the CLIP_FOLDER=path_to_some_folder custom parameter.
CLIPPER TOOLS (NOISE, TEMPO AND PITCH)
Modifying the audio by reducing the noise or changing tempo and/or pitch may help in some tough IDs. These functions use the 3rd party audio tools modified to JAGUAR and integrated into CLIPPER.
These tools are available in the CLIPPER only if you have downloaded and installed the TOOLS.zip package. This package can be found on JAGUAR's download page http://jaguars.kapsi.fi/download > OPTIONAL FILES > TOOLS.zip. After you have downloaded the package, unzip those two programs included (soundstrech.exe and noise.exe) to your JAGUAR installation folder.
How to use the NOISE/TEMPO/PITCH functions
If you want to change the noise/tempo/pitch output, click the corresponding button and drag or scroll the slider up/down.
NOISE: Select the amount of noise to be removed (min 0db, max 50dB, center 25dB). The NR process starts automatically after you stop moving the slider, the processed audio is added to the end of the clip and that area is played back automatically. If you want to repeat the process with some other dB value, click UNDO first and use NOISE with the desired new value. There has been a lot of talk about NR in the JAGUAR discussion forum, and this specific NR algorithm seems to be able to also fade out music and enchance particularly the speech areas, however it is not a miracle maker for weak signals.
TEMPO/PITCH: Select the desired speed/pitch. Playback starts automatically after you stop moving the slider bar. Any change processes the whole clip (can't be used for painted areas) and the playback is done outside CLIPPER (the output can't be saved). However the last used "external audio file" is saved as CLIPS\TEMP2.WAV. Note that changing tempo does not change the pitch and changing pitch does not change tempo, but if you necessarily want, you can change both of them (in that case you get the classic "chipmunk/klingon" effect just as when changing the plain audio playback sampling rate.
You can also extract and record the audio by pressing ALT-C: this mode does not start the GUI (there's only "RECORDING AUDIO" text visible on the STATUSBAR when this mode is active). This mode will record ANY audio you will currently hear on the headphones: it can be the Jaguar audio, the Perseus audio, the internet stream played within or outside Jaguar, Youtube video, etc. This recording ends when you press ALT-C again, then you can save the audio clip in the mp3 format.
NOTE: Some Windows setups do not support this feature.