C503719@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU (Baird McIntosh) (12/26/90)
I just got Synthia II for Christmas, and since no one here knew anything about this program about a month ago, I figure I'll give you my first impressions: First the good: Synthia II looks like a very good program for creating --------------- synthetic sound on the Amiga for use by the Amiga's sound hardware. You can also make samples for use in Synthia Professional; i.e. the file formats are recognized both ways. However, Synthia II is really best for making sounds to be reproduced by the Amiga's sound hardware. The number of synthesis methods, added effects, and adjustable parameters is overwhelming! The manual seems pretty good at giving basic explanations of most of the synthesis techniques employed. The package consists of a Program disk, an Examples disk (lots of examples), and an Extras disk (more on this below). Finally, you can load in sampled sounds and edit them, loop them, etc. with Synthia. The package recognizes a couple popular Mac formats too. And the bad: Unfortunately, there are some bad points. These are: ------------ 1) Synthia II, like the demo, runs with a default priority that is *system-hostile*. Just for your info, each process running on the Amiga has a priority, and it is through this priority that the OS knows how to slice up (allot) processor time. From the 1.3 Enhancer manual, I see that you should normally run programs at priority 0. Furthermore, priorities greater than 5 will interfere with the system's tasks. Well, Synthia II has a default priority of 12 (twelve)! This really interferes with multitasking because when you 'make' an instrument, the vast majority of processor time goes to Synthia II. What is really crazy is that I have used changetaskpri to lower Synthia II to 0 priority, and I notice no real slow down in the 'make' process. In other words, they aren't even gaining anything by being system-hostile! 2) Synthia II is key-disk protected. You can make a backup of the Program disk with AmigaDos, but then you'll have to insert the key-disk *once* per boot-up. (see below if the 'once' makes you curious) You can order a normal backup for $7.00 (why???) or an unprotected one for $15.00. This is really pathetic. The whole point of making a backup is so you don't have to keep the original out with your other disks! Fortunately, I was able to make a working back-up of the key-disk using NIB 1.0. So I don't have to shell out the $15.00. 3) Synthia II stomps on location 0!!! Yes, that's true. I run MemWatch, and it appears that Synthia II will write to location zero about four times on the first run. Then you exit and reload, and it won't write to location zero until you reboot your Amiga. I conclude from this that Synthia II uses location zero as a flag to determine if it has seen the key-disk yet. Since nobody is supposed to write to location zero, Synthia II decided to use it as their own global variable. Swell. :-( 4) Finally, the Extras disk has a SMUS player that will play scores that use normal IFF instruments and/or the new (not yet Amiga standard) AudioIFF instruments. However, the player is a bit of a dog -- I found that the tempo of some songs fluctuated. I'll stick with MED or Sonix. I plan to inlude the above comments on my registration card when I send it in. Synthia II looks like a ***really nice*** program for synthesizing clean, sweet-sounding instruments and effects. Unfortunately, copy protection and anti-multitasking programming practices are holding back this otherwise excellent program. Synthia II: distributed by The Other Guys Software, 55 North Main, Suite 301, Logan, UT 84321, 801-753-7620 Disclaimer: I received Synthia II as a gift. That's it. | Baird McIntosh | c503719@umcvmb.missouri.edu <-or-> c503719@umcvmb.bitnet | | COOL DRIVING TECHNIQUE #5: Wait for the closest parking space; ignore the | | cars behind you who'd be happy with *any* space sometime this millenium. |