There are two reasons behind this. The first one is that "EKO" sounds just like "echo", thus related to the sound domain. Another reason was the idea of animal rights promotion. I don't know how exactly EKO can help with that, but it is obvious to me that the freedom of software or music is just one step to more global freedom - the freedom of the personality, and not just a human personality, but also that of all animals. From my point of view, there is no difference in the life value between a human and a small mouse. They are equal.
EKO can open MP3 and import the sound from videofiles. But for that you need FFMPEG. Linux users can install it from their OS distribution's software repository. Windows users need to download FFMPEG and put the binary (exe) files (ffmpeg.exe or/and mplayer.exe) to the directory where eko.exe is installed.
For MP3 export, EKO needs LAME. Some Linux distros include this encoder. Some do not. But LAME is very simple to compile from source. Of course, Windows users need the binary lame.exe. It can be built from source using MinGW, or obtained from here. Just download Lame_VERSION_for_Windows.exe, install it, then copy lame.exe from the installation directory to the EKO folder, where eko.exe is located.
Before using EKO, set up the input and output devices/ports at the Options - Sound devices page. If recording or playback does not work (usually the error log is "Invalid number of channels"), try another option. It's important to choose the proper pair of ports. They must be on the same sound card and use the same API. For Linux I recommend "Pipewire". Don't forget to allow multiple sample rates at Pipewire's settings, otherwise Pipewire will resample your sounds while playing to the default Pipewire sample rate.
The "Invalid number of channels" error message can also appear if the sound device is currently used by another application (web browser, etc.).
EKO is a very simple sound editor. Unlike some other editors, it has no disk caching system, so all files are loaded directly into memory. This means that EKO needs a lot of memory if you work with large files or with many files simultaneously.
EKO's internals are 32-bit floating point mixing and DSP engine. All recording and playback use the Portaudio library to access the underlying sound system (Pipewire, ALSA, etc.).
EKO does not have tons of playback options. When you press the magic Space key, EKO starts to play the current file. If you press Space again, EKO pauses, not stops. To stop, you can press the Stop button on the toolbar. The "Stop" button stops the sound and moves the cursor to the beginning of the file.
There is also a "Loop" checkbox on the toolbar. When it is checked, EKO plays the current selection (if an area is selected) or the whole file in a continuous loop, repeating it over and over until you press Stop.
You can select sound data with the mouse or Shift+cursor.
To record a sound file, use File - Record. Press the "Stop" button when done. To set up the sound format, go to the Options - Common page, and there press the "Set default format for new files" button. Due to some Portaudio issues with ALSA, EKO opens the input sound device in stereo mode. But then, if the "mono recording" option is selected, on saving file EKO takes just one channel, left or right. Customize this in Options - Sound devices.
When recording, EKO uses a temporary file in the temporary directory, the system's by default. You can redefine EKO temp directory at Options - Common. So the maximum length of the recording depends on the free space on the disk partition where your temporary directory is located.
To hear what you are recording while recording, turn on the Options - Sound devices - Monitor input option.
EKO has a rack for real-time effects, combined with a simple mixer. Here you can add or delete effects. They can be tweaked in real time and you will hear the changes. When you decide to apply them "offline" to the selected area or the whole file, press the "Apply" button in the middle of the Mixer. You can also rearrange effects via "up" and "down". The "Apply" button, after all data has been processed, sets all effects to the bypass state.
Currently there are not many built-in real-time effects. External plugins may be supported in the future.
The "Volume" knob is virtual, i.e. it affects playback only, but does not render when you press "Apply". Also it does not affect the mixer's level meter.
From top to bottom, there are:
1. The main menu. Note that you can tear submenus off and place them somewhere over the desktop. Menu items depend on the current task or even the editor mode. Some menus can be visible or hidden according to the task (editing, file browsing, etc.).
2. The toolbars area. Toolbars can be parked on any side of the EKO window. Positions are saved between sessions. To turn the toolbar on and off, use the context menu for the toolbar (right-click on the toolbar). If no toolbar is visible, right-click on the menu bar.
3. The tabbed area. It contains four main tabs - Editor, Files, Options and Manual. Editor - that's where you see opened documents. Files - the built-in file manager. Options - here you can change EKO preferences. All changes are applied immediately. Manual - the built-in User manual. This one.
4. Logmemo. It is the notification area. Displays all warnings, information messages, etc.
5. The Famous input field (FIF). The input text field that is used for Find (read about the Search menu for details). FIF has three buttons - Find, Find previous and Find next. FIF is also used for searching in the EKO manual, menu items list (at the hotkeys customization page) and even the built-in file manager.
6. The status bar.
EKO's file manager is hidden under the Files tab. It is not an additional bloatware tool, but an essential part of the editor. It replaces the standard File save/open dialogs (by the way, you can bring them back using the Options > Interface > Use traditional File Save/Open dialogs option).
Let's look at the shining force of EKO's file manager.
At the top, the directory bar is located. There is an entry with the current directory path, and a nice toolbar with the following weird-looking buttons:
Go - navigates to the directory with the path from the text entry.
Home - teleports you to your cozy home directory.
Refresh - refreshes the files list.
File operations button with the submenu. It contains some utility actions such as Create new directory, Rename and Delete file. Please note that EKO cannot delete directories.
The right panel of the file manager.
At the top you see the file name field. Here you can name a file to open or save. To save the current file under a name, just write the filename into the Name text entry and press the Save as button. The file will be saved with the format and sample rate that are defined at File - Format and samplerate.
To open a file, double-click on the file name in the files list, or put the file name into the Name entry and press the Open button. You can use the Enter key inside this input field. The action is related to the menu item (File open or Save as) that you used to open the file manager tab.
You can also select multiple files (Ctrl+click) and then press the Open button.
Bookmarks list. You can easily add and remove directory bookmarks using the "+" and "-" buttons. The "+" button adds a bookmark to the file system tree's current directory. The "-" button removes the selected bookmark. To activate the bookmark and navigate to the corresponding directory, double-click on the bookmark.
New. This menu item creates an empty file with parameters that are defined under Options - Common - Set default format for new files. EKO holds internally all sound data at 32-bit floating point sample values, and external conversion to other formats happens on saving or loading.
Open - if you are using the built-in file manager, read the File manager chapter. Otherwise, use the standard "File open" dialog window.
EKO supports many sound formats using the libsndfile library: WAV, AIFF, AU, RAW, PAF, SVX, NIST, VOC, IRCAM, W64, MAT4, MAT5, PVF, XI, HTK, SDS, AVR, SD2, FLAC, CAF, WVE, OGG and others. WAV PCM is supported from signed 8 bit up to 64 bit double, with any sample rate.
EKO can open MP3 and video files (as audio tracks) in read-only mode. EKO uses the external tool FFMPEG for that. When opening such files, EKO uses a temporary WAV file in the temporary directory that you need to set up at Options - Common - Temp directory, so there must be enough available free space.
Opening large video files takes a lot of time, because the decoder will decode and EKO will calculate the sound peak data. So be patient.
Save — if your file is already saved, this menu item saves it again. That is how it works. But if the file is not saved, you will see the File manager. There, write the file name into the Name entry and press the Save as button.
To save a file in a different format and with a different file name, use the File - Change format window, choose a format, then do Save As.
To save a file under the same filename with a different format, use File - Change format, and then Save as or Save. In this case (just Save), if the file extension is not the same as the extension of the selected format, the proper extension will be ADDED to the resulting file name. EKO does not make format conversion if you just change the file extension by Save as.
Some examples:
Let's assume that you have a WAV at 16-bit PCM, test.wav. If you select the FLAC format and then Save, you'll get the "test.wav.flac" file.
If you have a new file and try to save it without a file extension, EKO adds the file extension according to the file format.
Last closed file - opens the last closed file.
Save as different > Save timestamped version - saves the content of the current document with a name where the timestamp is added. So you will know the date and time related to the saved version. Note about the timestamp format. It is yyyy-MM-dd-hh-mm-ss. So the first comes the year, then the month, then the day, then the hours, the minutes and the seconds.
Import/Export > Import from RAW - allows you to open any file as sound data, using the manually selected data format.
Import/Export > Export to MP3 - encodes the current document's sound data to an MP3 file using the external encoder defined by the command at Options - Common - MP3 encode command parameter. LAME is used by default.
Recent files. From here you can open one of the dozen recently opened files.
Sessions - at this menu sessions are available. A session is a simple list of opened files. To load them all, just choose the session name. To save the session use File > Save different > Save session. At the preferences Common page you can check the Restore the last session on start-up option. If this option is turned on, EKO will save the session on exit (under the name def-session-777), and then load this session when starting.
File actions submenu. Reload is a function to reload the current file's content from the disk.
Exit - closes EKO. To reduce annoyance, EKO doesn't ask to confirm it.
Cut, Copy, Paste - works similarly to any other sound editor. When you paste sound data into another file, the data from the clipboard will be resampled to the destination file's sample rate and the channel count will be reduced or expanded according to the destination file's channel count.
Copy to new - copies the selected data to a new file. The new file will have the same sound format as the source data.
Copy to new (default format) - copies the selected data to a new file. The new file will have the default sound format for a new file (you can set it at the Options - Common).
EKO has no dialog windows for the search. EKO uses the Famous input field (FIF) and menu-driven interface. FIF works in Options - Keyboard and the manual panel. Type+enter=search, F3 - search next from the cursor position.
This menu holds "offline"-processing functions such as reverse, fade, RMS calculation, channel management and others.
Dynamics - Apply volume envelope - applies the off-line volume automation envelope that you can create by right-clicking on the waveform. The volume envelope effect is not heard when playing. You need to create the envelope and then apply it.
Right-click creates a new envelope point. Shift + left click on a point sets its value to zero. Ctrl + left click deletes the point.
There are two automatically created points at the beginning and the end of the envelope (the ending point is not always visible). You cannot delete them. To control the last point, use the previous one.
The dynamic range of the envelope is from -90 dB (when the point is below the axis) to +6 dB (when the point is above). To make sound louder, move the point higher, and vice versa. With the volume envelope you can control the volume precisely. The envelope time range is the whole file, not the selection.
To delete the envelope, use the Remove volume envelope menu item.
DC offset - this menu contains functions to fix the DC offset. In most cases you can use Fix DC offset auto and you can do it multiple times on the same portion of data to set the correct DC. Another way is to apply two functions - Detect DC offset first, then copy the offset value from Logmemo, then use Fix DC offset manually and enter that offset value into the input entry. The best result for Detect DC offset is achieved when you scan the shifted "silence" (which looks like a completely solid waveform).
Fm means the File manager. This menu contains the functions related to EKO file manager and is visible when the browse tab is active.
Fm > Select by regexp/Deselect by regexp — use these functions to select or deselect files by regexp pattern. For example, to select all txt-files in the current directory, put the following regexp into the FIF: ".*\.txt$" (without quotes!). Then, use Select by regexp. Then you can press the Open button to open all selected files.
Themes - EKO has some built-in GUI themes.
Palettes - from this submenu you can select the color scheme that affects the wave editing area.
Profiles - this menu allows you to switch between view profiles (they include parameters such as window position, size, etc.). So you can save your current settings via the Save profile function, and a named profile will appear in the Profiles menu. At any time you can select it to recall saved settings.
Here you can scale the waveform to the selected zoom factor, or save up to two factor presets - Zoom A and Zoom B - to switch between them quickly.
Another way to zoom is to use the mouse wheel, but with a large file it can be very slooooooow.
On the Keyboard tab you can assign shortcuts to menu items. To set a new hotkey, select a menu item from the list, then press the hotkey combination in the entry to the right of the list, and press the Assign button. To remove a hotkey, select the menu item from the list and press the Remove button. To re-assign a hotkey that is already in use, do Remove for that shortcut first.
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