ins_adjb@jhunix.UUCP (Daniel Jay Barrett) (01/15/87)
I would appreciate hearing from any musicians who have used the new SOUNDSCAPE program from Mimetics. From the review I read (February 1987 ELECTRONIC MUSICIAN), it looks like the best music program I have ever seen. Thanks! -- -- Dan Barrett ins_adjb@jhunix.UUCP barrett@hopkins-eecs-bravo.arpa
ee173way@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU (John Schultz) (01/16/87)
I've been using it for some time, it's ok. Primarily I use it for digitizing sound effects for a video game I am developing.
keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) (01/18/87)
In article <4267@jhunix.UUCP> ins_adjb@jhunix.UUCP (Daniel Jay Barrett) writes: > > I would appreciate hearing from any musicians who have >used the new SOUNDSCAPE program from Mimetics. From the review I >read (February 1987 ELECTRONIC MUSICIAN), it looks like the best >music program I have ever seen. I assume we're talking about the 'Pro MIDI Studio'. Well, it's ok. I have version 1.1, and when I call Mimetics they tell me that the free upgrades to 1.3 (I believe) are coming RSN. The version I have crashes a lot. I think it's perhaps because of running out of memory. I've more recently upgraded to 1MB and it dosen't crash quite as often, though it still crashes. I've learned to save a lot. I've found it dosen't seem to like to 'extend' the length of a previously recorded track if you want to add stuff and lengthen it later. This has proved to be a royal pain in the butt, though there may be a way to do this reasonably that I just haven't had time to figure out yet. I find the editing features pretty confusing. They kind of relate it to 'film' editing where you always have ahold of the start of a 'scene'(?). The problem is, I don't always want to work with the entire rest of the track, and would prefer to be able to specify both the start and end points. Apparently you have to do some pretty tricky stuff to make it work. I had a real hard time doing something I thought ought to be pretty easy, i.e. I wanted to do a couple of measures of a bass or drum (or both) track, and then replicate the measures ad infinitum (ad boredom) so I didn't have to sit there and play the darn things for a long time (and so I could edit one, and have the changes duplicated for the entire track). I suppose it's pretty 'intuitive' if you think the right way (like the programmer I guess) but I haven't yet figured out just how to think to 'intuit' the job done. And a film editor friend of mine hasn't been able to shed any light on it either. I've been hoping I can use Deluxe Music Construction Set to help here. (or version 1.3?) The copy protection has prohibited me from making a backup copy (at least so far). It seems to have most of the features I want from such a program, and can import/export IFF SMUS which should allow use of Deluxe Music Construction Set for music printing. I hope the new version is more stable. I do feel however, that the package would probably not compare favorably with some of the better packages available for the MacIntosh. This is just a gut feel though. I do have a friend who has a Mac and a couple of the better packages, but really haven't sat down to a feature-for- feature comparison. And after all, the Mimetics 'Pro MIDI Studio' is about half the price of the Mac packages I'm talking about. (unless you add the cost of the developers kit). As far as I know, it is not only the best, but the ONLY MIDI recorder- type package available for the Amiga. It supports 16 tracks, midi in and out, supports internal sampling sounds, has a 'modular' approach and a 'patch panel' that allows you to interconnect the modules together, and you can get the Mimetics 'developers kit' for $150 that gives you specs on how to write your own modules and data on the various file formats so you can hack on them. I'd like to hack out a Soundfile cut and paste program that allows me to assemble samples from several previously saved sample files into a single 'instrument' in the SoundScape format, which is infinitely more practical than using the idiotic IFF format which likes to force each octave sample to be half the size of the previous octave sample. Unfortunately, I must spend $150, or a lot of time looking at hex dumps to figure out the SoundScape file format in order to implement such a hack. Oh well, maybe version 1.3 already has this feature. I'm not sorry I bought SoundScape, (as I was when I bought DeluxeVideo) and it does do the job (when it's not crashing) but I'm not ready to say it's the best thing since sliced bread etc. Keith Doyle # {ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd # cadovax!keithd@ucla-locus.arpa
haitex@pnet01.cts.com (Wade Bickel) (01/28/88)
I saw a friend use Soundscape recently and it looked to be a fine
product. I was able to see what was going on quite clearly even though I'd
not seen the program used before. I't had a number of nice functions.
Wade.
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