lfog@PacBell.COM (Lee Fogel) (11/03/89)
In article <19007@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> nj@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (...) writes: > >And while we're on the subject, how about the Dr T's line of ed/libs >and sequencers? Is their stuff any good? > I've been using Dr. T's sequencer software (KCS II w/PVG, Tunesmith & Fingers) for quite a while now on my Atari ST. If you are just looking for a basic sequencer that imitates multitrack recording functions, KCS may be overkill, although it does have a 'Track' mode for that kind of stuff. What I love about Dr. T's software is the power and flexibility it gives you for composing and manipulating musical events. In 'Open' mode, sequences can call sequences which call sequences... Sequences can be triggered in real time from the computer keyboard (up to 136 I think) as well as transposed in a variety of ways. Besides musical information, you can imbed all kinds of control commands in a sequence to change the rythm, transpose another sequence, choose randomly from a group of events, and on and on. Music can be entered into KCS in realtime, steptime, typed in, or from another sequencer, and the standard midi sequence file format is supported. In addition to the sequencer, there are all kinds of algorithmic composing tools. PVG (programmable variations generator) will take an existing sequence and let you generate variations of it according to an abundant amount of parameters that you define. This included all kinds of editing options that will let you split and combine sequences based in the velocities or pitches or midi assignments of the notes. I've only touched the tip of the iceberg with PVG. The other programs I have, Tunesmith and Fingers give me some really fun ways of interactively generating new sequences. These programs can be intergrated into Dr. T's MPE environment which lets load them into RAM along with KCS so that sequence data can be transferred all around. I'm not sure is the MPE environment is supported for the Amiga. Anyway, I think the bottom line with Dr. T's sequencer software is that you can take it as far as you want, or you can keep it simple. I haven't really used any other sequencer software worth mentioning, so I can't compare Dr. T's to anything else. For the last three years I haven't needed anything else. Hope this helps. I'll be happy to answer any questions via email. <<lee>>