oster@ucblapis.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster) (05/12/86)
This letter describes a system for your mac that does for sound what
Thunderscan and MacPaint do for graphics. The sound quality is good,
so good that you won't believe your mac could sound that good.
Run right out and get Studio Session and Audio Digitizer from MacNifty.
What you get in the Audio Digitizer package:
1.) A hardware unit that plugs into an audio source like the LINE OUT
of a stereo amplifier at one end, and into the modem port of the Mac
at the other end. (you can use the printer port, instead.)
2.) Sound Cap(ture) a program that does:
a.) real - time audio oscilliscope
b.) real - time digital echo and reverb with a wide range
of controllable parameters
c.) sound recording: about 15 seconds on a fat mac at full
resolution, correspondingly more if you are willing to sacrifice
some high frequency response.
d.) a mouse controlled interface to the recording, you see it as
a waveform, and can cut it, paste it, or save it to disk as a named
file.
e) The most important thing that Sound Cap(ture) does is let you
save a recording as a voice. You can select a middle piece of a
recording as the sustain of that voice. I will explain more about
this later.
Okay, now you've got the sound in there, now what. The Audio Digitizer
disk also includes the following programs:
f.) A program to permanently associate any sound recording with
system startup.
g.) A program to permanently replace the Mac's beep with your own
recording.
h.) A program to use your recordings with videoWorks.
i.) SoundPlay, a simple progam to play a sound file, the source
code for which has appeared on net.micro.mac, so you can include
sound in your own programs.
j.) A silly program to add the sound effects of an Underwood manual
typewriter to your Mac's keyboard.
But, it is the Studio Session disk that has the real fun stuff. On that disk
is a program called "Player" that brings up an animation of a cassette player:
the timing counter spins like a car's odometer, you can watch the tape wind
off of one reel onto the other. The VU meters show you the levels on each
track as it plays. It sounds like music. Then it hits you, this
isn't a cassette recorder; this is your Mac. The sound, particularly when
piped into the AUX input on your stereo, is just incredible.
A second program on the Studio Session disk is "Editor" you use this to
build the music that "Player" plays. Since you can also play music in
"Editor" you don't really need "Player", but "Player" is a great way of
showing off your Mac. (The animation during playback in Editor has to be
seen to be believed: hit "About Editor...")
"Editor" is a music composition program similar to MusicWorks,
Deluxe Music Construction Kit, and ConcertWare. There is a staff, and
you drop notes onto it by clicking with the mouse. But, the differences:
Remember those voices that you saved back in "e.)"? Sound Session synthesizes
an entire scale from the single note you recorded and saved back in (e.)
You can record a flute note and play the flute. You can record a piano
note, and your notes will sound like a piano. You can play the rain,
the screeching of an angry cat, the Morman Taberenacle Choir, or an entire
symphony orchestra in full creschendo. The sounds you can get out of this
software are just incredible!
Studio Session comes with two more
disks full of prerecorded instruments, about 80 instruments. Studio
Session supports not 4 but 6 simultaneous voices, and you can have dozens
of instruments in a single piece, although only 6 of them can be active at
one time.
Akai sells a box that records 8 seconds of sound and makes a scale of it.
they want $600 for the box. This software gives you the power of 6 of
those boxes. I heard the Akai box demoed the day before I walked into
ComputerWare in Palo Alto and saw there the non-descript, brown cardboard
packages of the MacNifty products. Looking at the boxes and skimming the
manuals, I couldn't really tell what the software did. But, I bought them,
brought them home, plugged them in, and discovered that you don't
need the manuals much -- like proper Mac software, you already know how to
use it.
Prices: Audio Digitizer $129.00, discounted to $109.00
Studio Session $ 59.00
I have no connection whatever with the manufacturer except as a happy
customer.