mab@druca.UUCP (Alan Bland) (09/06/85)
If you're a collector of C64 music software, then you might be interested
in a new product by Activision called "The Music Studio". I'm quite
impressed by its capabilities and ease of use. I've listed many of its
features below, and compared them with the features of other music software
I'm familiar with.
* The user interface is icon-based, using a joystick or Koala pad for
input - reminiscent of Music Construction Set, but more colorful and
with more features.
* There are two ways to create songs to be played back - the "editor" lets
you place notes, rests, accidentals, measure bars, and repeats on a grand
staff in standard music notation. The "painter" is a simpler editor, where
you place bars on the staff of varying lengths - not normal music notation.
* The "engineering" screen lets you customize the instruments (presets).
Only the most obscure SID features are not available (such as external
filter, voice 3 suppression).
* Songs and instrument settings can be saved to disk, and songs can be
printed in standard music notation on Commodore-compatible printers.
* The disk comes with about 30 sample songs, some of them quite complex,
and 3 files of instruments (45 instruments, though some are duplicated).
* Using a Koala pad, the editor and engineering screens are extremely
easy to use. For ease of use, I like this package more than Kawasaki
Synthesizer, Music Processor, MusiCalc 1, 3001, and Synthesound 64.
Of these, only MusiCalc is comparable for easily and quickly changing
SID parameters while a song is playing.
* One distinctive feature of the music editor that has enhanced my creativity
is its use of color. Each of the 15 instruments are identified by a color
as well as a name (the other music packages mentioned above just use
*numbers* for the presets - quick, which preset sounds like a flute?).
You can easily switch between instruments just by using different colored
notes on the screen. You can use all 15 instruments in a song in any
combination (as long as no more than 3 notes are playing at once, of
course). Of the music packages listed above, only the Music Processor
editor allows you the flexibility to use many different instruments in
a song, but it's tedious to do.
* A song can have up to 800 "columns". A column can have up to 3 notes or
rests, a measure bar, a repeat bar, or be empty. Most of the sample
songs are less than 300 columns, and they play for several minutes
(with scattered repeat bars), so this seems to be an adequate size.
* One problem I've had, which is really a SID limitation that is not
handled optimally by the software, is its use of filters. Part of the
definition of each instrument is the filter settings (low pass, band pass,
high pass, cutoff frequency, and resonance) for that instrument.
However, the SID chip has only one setting for each of these for the
chip. If you define one instrument (call it green) with low pass set and
a cutoff of 1000, and another (red) with high pass and a cutoff 2000,
and you create a song where red and green notes are played at the same
time, the sound is unpredictable - the SID can only use one of these
filter settings, dependent on the order that the software writes the
SID registers. Sometimes it writes green before red, sometimes red before
green. The only way to get predictable filtered sounds is to have all
filtered instruments that are going to be played simultaneously
to use identical filter settings. Since it's a hardware limitation, I
can't really complain too much, though (get me an Amiga!).
* The documentation is fine for a tutorial, but not very good as a
reference manual. If you don't know how a particluar icon works,
you have to browse through the tutorial looking for the name of the
icon. There is a list of all icons and their names, but even the name
is not enough for some functions.
* If you don't like icon programs, don't buy this program! Most of the
icons are pretty obvious, but some are obscure. It's very easy to use
with the Koala pad, although I suspect it is tedious using a joystick.
The keyboard is used ONLY to input the names of disk files, instruments,
and lyrics.
* There's no way to play a tune in real time (i.e. there's no piano-type
keyboard, which all the other packages I've mentioned do have). You must
compose a song in the editor and have the computer play it back.
* All the other packages have some type of software-generated special
effects, such as vibrato (frequency modulation), pulse width modulation,
sliding notes, frequency offset, etc. The Music Studio has only what
is provided directly by the SID.
Overall impressions:
* The Music Studio is the easiest-to-use music software package I've used
(although I might not say that if I weren't using a Koala pad). Its
features are comparable or superior to other packages for creating
complex songs using lots of SID effects.
* I recommend it over the other ones I've mentioned if you like to compose
music to be played by the computer, but not if you primarily want to use
it as a keyboard to play music.
Disclaimers:
* I'm not affiliated with any of the companies mentioned.
* All of the product names are probably trademarks of their manufacturers.
--
Alan Bland {ihnp4|allegra}!druca!mab
AT&T Information Systems, Denver CO