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 |
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