# The &kappname; Handbook

## Introduction

soniK is an open source digital audio editor for Linux, using the KDE platform. soniK allows you to record, edit and process sounds on your computer.

### &kappname; features

soniK's main features include:

- Record audio using your computer's soundcard

- Visualise the audio as a waveform or a spectrogram

- Edit the audio and transform it with a wide variety of plugins

- Generate new sounds

- Develop your own plugins using the soniK SDK

soniK uses the aRts sound system from KDE which means a wide variety of soundcards are supported. Future versions of soniK will also use the JACK sound system which provides real-time, low-latency sound input/output.

soniK uses LADSPA plugins to apply effects to sound files. Several packages of plugins are available, providing hundreds of effects and you should install some of these to get the most out of soniK. Available packages include:

- SWH plugins.

- Computer Music Toolkit.

- Tom's Audio Processing plugins.

- CAPS Audio Plugin Suite

- BLOP

soniK uses KDE's network transparency features to allow you to edit files on remote machines

&sonik-using; &sonik-commands; &sonik-faq;

## Support

If you have a problem with or question about soniK then please email the users mailing list sonik sonik-users@lists.sourceforge.net. Also please send any feature suggestions or other comments to the list, so I can keep improving soniK.

### Reporting bugs

If you find a bug in soniK, then please enter it in the bug tracker at http://sonik.sourceforge.net.

## Credits and License

&kappname;

Program Copyright © 2002-2006 &Rob.Walker; &Rob.Walker.mail;

Documentation Copyright © 2005-2006 &Rob.Walker; &Rob.Walker.mail;

&underFDL; &underGPL;

## Installation

### How to obtain &kappname;

&kappname; can be downloaded from soniK's website at http://sonik.sourceforge.net.

### Requirements

In order to successfully use &kappname;, you need the following:

- &kde; 3.3 or greater

- aRts 1.3 or greater

- GNU Scientific Library.

- A supported soundcard. Most soundcards are supported by the aRts sound system.

Optional ladspa plugins may also be installed. Available plugins include:

- SWH plugins

- Computer Music Toolkit

- Tom's Audio Processing plugins

- CAPS Audio Plugin Suite

- BLOP

Most Linux distributions have packages for the above software. Please see your distribution's package management tool or http://sonik.sourceforge.net for more details.

### Compilation and Installation

In order to compile and install &kappname; on your system, type the following in the base directory of the &kappname; distribution:

    % ./configure
    % make
    % make install

Since &kappname; uses `autoconf` and `automake` you should have no trouble compiling it. Should you run into problems please report them to the &kappname; mailing lists.

&documentation.index;