wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) (08/26/86)
///// Hi, I've had some opportunity to experiment with instant music from EA. At least now one can make a sort-of backup copy. It is still necessary to insert the orginal master, and booting from the backup fails occasionally. There are a few nasty bugs. The bugs are related to importing sounds other than the ones included. At times, there are also problems with the native stuff. When loading one of the four instruments, I've occasionally had the sound from the loaded instrument suddenly replace the sound from one of the other three instruments. I've made some 8SVX sound files with the Applied Visions sound digitizer that don't load correctly. I checked the contents of the A-V files, and they seem to match the 8SVX format "published" by EA. It seems that Instant music has only a very small buffer for loading the sound files. It would have been very helpful if EA would have included permissible file lengths and necessary sample rates for importing files in the manual. Even my friend who is not a programmer understands the significance of the above, so it would have been a germaine topic for the user manual. I suspect that EA figures eveybody is just going to shell out the bucks for their auxillary sounds diskette, so why bother. The sound library format is also very inflexible. It appears that IM insists that sounds always be in :Instruments/library#/... , where # is 1..3. They give you the option of supplying the directory name, but that is ignored in favor of the above. At times bringing up the istruments list trashes the display on the screen; usually clicking the list again restores the display. Also it seems that each library menu only holds 8 insturments, which would limit one to 24 sounds per disk. Other than the bug list, the program is pretty much as advertised. The manual is pretty clear, and has a nice layout for neophytes to music theory. It's kind of simplistic for people with intermediate or greater experience. I think that IM would be a lot of fun for introducing kids to the basics of composition. The manual should give more technical detail on the program itself. The copy scheme should be easier to use or else be nonexistent. It is particularly cubersome on single-drive machines, and incurrs a memory penalty on two-drive systems. IM could almost be used professionally to provide a rhythm backup, but would have to be easier to live with a-la copy scheme to make it worthwhile. IM would be reasonable in the $10-15 range, based on what it does but $40 is a bit much to ask in light of its flaws. I mentioned this in a letter to EA; I hope they eventually catch on. --Bill (wtm@neoucom.UUCP)