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QPlayer Documentation

Sound Cue

Sound cues allow the playback of a single audio file. The sound cue provides a few basic parameterised features to customise playback, these are listed below.

Sound cue editor

Media File

This field stores the path to the audio file to be played. To browse for an audio file, press the ... button to open a file browser. QPlayer will automatically make file paths in this field relative to the directory containing the QPlayer project (eg: if the project file is in C:\Projects\MyProj.qproj and you specify a media file at C:\Projects\Media\audio.mp3, then QPlayer will rewrite it as Media\audio.mp3), this allows for better portability if a QPlayer project is moved to another directory. If a media file can’t be found at the given path, QPlayer will automatically search for it in the project directory and all subdirectories.

The following audio file formats are supported:

  • .mp3
  • .wav
  • .aiff
  • .flac
  • .ogg
  • .wma

Waveform Viewer

Once an audio file is loaded, it’s waveform is displayed in the waveform viewer. This can make it easier to find start and end points in the audio file. In the waveform display, the light-blue waveform represents the peak volume and the dark-blue represents the RMS volume (which is closer to the perceived loudness).

Dragging the green marker (using the square handle at the bottom), allows the start time to be set. The red marker can also be dragged to set the duration of the cue.

To zoom/pan the waveform click and drag on the ruler at the bottom of the waveform, dragging up and down zooms in and out, and dragging left and right pans the view of the waveform left and right.

You can also press the [] button in the top corner of the waveform to open a large preview of the waveform in a separate window:

Waveform viewer

To speed up waveform rendering, QPlayer stores a compressed version of the computed waveform next to each loaded audio file in a .qpek file. These can safely be deleted at any time, QPlayer will simply regenerate the file on demand.

Start Time

This sets the time at which the audio file should start playing. Use this to trim the start of an audio file.

Duration

This sets the total duration of the audio file to be played. This includes the fade-in and fade-out time, but doesn’t include the time skipped by Start Time. Use this to trim the end of an audio file.

Volume

This sets the playback volume of the audio file, it’s set as a simple multiplier of the audio file’s native volume. A value of 1 represents no change to the file’s full-scale volume.

Fade In Time

This sets a fade in time for the cue in seconds.

Fade Out Time

This sets a fade out time for the cue in seconds. Note that the total duration of the cue specified in Duration will still be respected, hence for a fade out time of n seconds, the fade out will start n seconds before the total duration of the cue.

Fade Type

This specifies the shape of the curve used to fade in/out the audio file. The following fade curves are available:

  • Linear — a simple linear fade.
  • SCurve — an S shaped fade, with a slow start and slow end. (Implemented as a quadaratic hermite spline)
  • Square — a square-law fade, with a slow start and fast end.
  • InverseSquare — an inverse square-law fade, with a fast start and a slow end.