Anyone know where I can find some? I guess my google skills leave something to be desired.

If you've got OS 9 running then Pro Tools Free *might* do it - certainly reads SD2 files. I don't know for certain, so this is just a hunch...

PC or Mac (or unix)?

I'm pretty sure that my friend running the studio has Pro Tools, but he is running it on PC not Mac

Here's his studio's myspace page, I think it lists his gear and software somewhere.

Sorry for the god-awful shit bands he ends up recording. I'm afraid there aren't to many good ones around here.

Edit: I will be using a PC for this work, which I have volunteered to do for him.

hmmm...

Googled around a bit and only Sound Forge keeps coming up. It's a PC thing. I guess it depends on how valuable those files are to him.

Another possibility is software used to program samplers, or perhaps even hardware samplers. I believe SD1 files, being mono, were used for that kind of thing.

The files are pretty valuable (in my opinion anyway)

They are pretty much the only access he has to stuff he recorded between 1999 and 2002.

Considering that some stuff I recorded is in that date range, they are important to me too.

Well, if they are worth $300...

http://www.digitraxx.com/s_sf8_o.html

(There may well be better prices out there. And I'd double check on the Sound Designer 1 thing first.)

you might shoot an email to this guy

http://railjonrogut.com/

he made a fancy SD2 > WAV conversion program - maybe he has some insight on the SD1 issue. he also seems to occasionally post on tapeop/psw.

I'd be surprised if SD1 files are complicated. Likely just a header and then samples.

Hey, maybe Max (the visual midi/audio programming environment) already knows about SD1 files.

If your friend has a copy of Cool Edit or Adobe Audition, he should be able to read these files with either of those apps. You only need to know the sample rate and bit depth of the files, and then you can force the app to read the raw PCM data, with Motorola/big-endian byte order specified if they were written with a Mac, or Intel/little-endian byte order specified if they were written with a PC. However, if you specify the wrong sample rate, bit depth or byte order, you'll end up with either mis-pitched audio or white noise. Sometimes you can guess at the parameters until you end up with what you know to be the correct audio.