EDWARD.STAUFF@OFFICE.WANG.COM (Edward L. Stauff) (03/07/91)
I'm looking for a patch editor that runs under Microsoft Windows (3.0).
There seem to be two choices: Dr. T's "Xor", and Sound Quest's "MIDI Quest".
They are both approximately the same price (around $250), and I have read
EM's reviews for both of them.
Can anyone offer me any further information (facts, opinions, etc.) that will
help me choose between them?
Reply via e-mail, rec.music.synth, or comp.music. I will post a summary of
any e-mail responses I receive.
-- Ed Stauff Edward.Stauff@office.wang.com
"Specialization is for insects." -- Lazarus Longglennd@athena.arc.nasa.gov (Glenn Deardorff) (03/07/91)
You may want to take a look at Keyboard's recent reviews of X-Or, Midi Quest, and Hybrid Arts' GenEdit. According to them, Midi Quest came in a distant third, due to (if memory serves me) a poorly designed user interface (non-intuitive), rather pedestrian librarian facilities (supposedly enhanced with database-type keyword search facilities in the latest version, however), and less-than-complete patch editing facilities for synths they supposedly support. The review of Midi Quest is in the latest Keyboard issue, that of X-Or is from two issues before that. I have X-Or, and think it's great. The librarian includes the afore-mentioned multiple keyword-search facility (using multiple keywords with different combinations of "and"s and "or"s), you can easily jump from one synth window to another with a click of a button, you can have up to 4 sound banks per synth active at any time (at least in the Atari version), the Merge, Blend, and Randomize features I find incredibly useful, and it fully supports progammible MIDI patch bays, meaning all the MIDI signal routing between X-Or and synths are automatically taken care of. There is a lot of online support, with both technical advice and profile updates. I found the user interface very easy to learn. The patch editing templates are pretty generic, which you may or may not like, with sliders being used for just about all the editable parameters, plus direct envelope editing. Every template is contained on one big scrollable page (i.e. no page hopping is used). The Keyboard review didn't like that layout; supposedly, Dr. T's is looking into ways to make it easier. I personally don't find this annoying; the main thing I would like to see changed is to somehow be able to see all the envelopes on one screenfull (apparently, it's pretty easy to reconfigure the layout of the editing page using E-Or, if all you want to do is rearrange it). The only problem I had was that, in response to my inquiry, they had told me that the Casio VZ10m was fully supported. As it happens, the "normal" mode (the basic patch editing mode) isn't (currently) supported, and the implementation of the "combination" mode (or multi-timbral mode) or just doing librarian-type things like moving patches between the Casio and X-Or is such that you have to always initiate a patch dump or load from the Casio, and it always had to be done for the whole bank. According to their online help file, this was the only way it could be achieved, but Dr. T's VZ-Rider (which I ended up getting) doesn't suffer from this - at least you can edit patches, and hear the changes right away. But all in all, I think its great - definitely, much closer to treating your entire setup (including MIDI effects boxes, etc.) as one big monster synth. I would encourage you to call them for a free demo version (also available on GEnie). I gave $10 to Soundquest for their demo version, called much later to remind them to send it to me, and still never got it. Happy Sonic Tampering, Glenn
rds95@leah.albany.edu (Robert Seals) (03/07/91)
In article <1991Mar7.022847.26622@riacs.edu> (Glenn Deardorff) writes: >I would encourage you to call them for a free demo version (also >available on GEnie). I gave $10 to Soundquest for their demo version, >called much later to remind them to send it to me, and still never got it. Anybody know if it's available on an internet anon ftp machine? rob -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Unix has its weak points, but its file system is not one of them." -Chris Torek rob rob@asrcmv.albany.edu or rds95@leah.albany.edu or rob@dinner.albany.edu I have no idea what the uucp path to me is.
ken@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu (Ken Sallenger) (03/08/91)
I, too, am looking for a generic patch editor/librarian. Although I'm leaning toward X-Or, more info on these programs would be appreciated. My criteria include the fact that I'm on an Atari platform, while my brother is using a PClone. Assuming that we can agree on a program, it would be _really_ nice to have the same one so that I can take my patch files to his house. As far as I know, X-or and Midi Quest are the only programs available for both platforms. Both are reputed to have file formats portable across the versions. NOTE though that the Atari is a Big-Endian processor (Motorola MC680X0) and the PC is Little-Endian (Intel 80XX, 80X86). Has anyone experience with transporting data files from PC to Mac/Atari/Amiga? This really shouldn't be a problem, unless one is dealing with some numeric quantity bigger than 8 bits, in which case the different architectures store the bytes differently. The program would then have to store it in some order agreed to by both implementations. I don't think my gear has any parameters bigger than an 8-bit integer... * * * In article <1991Mar7.022847.26622@riacs.edu> glennd@athena.arc.nasa.gov (Glenn Deardorff) writes: => You may want to take a look at Keyboard's recent reviews of X-Or, Midi => Quest, and Hybrid Arts' GenEdit... => The review of Midi Quest is in the latest Keyboard issue, that of X-Or => is from two issues before that. The X-Or write-up is a comparative review with GenEdit for the Atari. I think that they reviewed X-Or on a PC platform. They didn't have a usable copy of Midi Quest in time for that article, so it was reviewed in the most recent issue. On a MacIntosh.... At about the same time as the earlier article (November?), Electronic Musician carried a quickie review of Midi Quest (PC version) which was very favorable. => ... According to them, [i.e. Keyboard in the most recent article] => Midi Quest came in a distant => third, due to (if memory serves me) a poorly designed user interface => (non-intuitive), I took this with a large grain of salt. It seemed to me that they really didn't like the UI because it wasn't *Mac-like* (remember they were reviewing the Mac version). For me this is not a big consideration. I don't use Mac software unless I really have to use it (i.e. at work). My Atari boots up into a command-line interpreter... you get the idea. As long as it looks the same across the platforms on which I'll use it, I'll be happy. The X-Or review points out that one has to scroll around in a large virtual window to get to all the parameters, and that this takes time. Gen-Edit, at least, lets one jump by hot-key or -button directly to the sub-page in question. I don't recall how one MQ handles moving among parameters. => rather pedestrian librarian facilities (supposedly => enhanced with database-type keyword search facilities in the latest => version, however), Now *this* I take seriously. Everything I've read leads me to think that X-Or has the edge here. A couple of years of trying to invent meaningful 8-character file names for my patch banks makes this (almost) a clincher. Of course, I'll probably still have to load the file in order to do the keyword search, yes? Can I ask it to search all the patch files in sub-directory X for matching keywords. => and less-than-complete patch editing facilities for => synths they supposedly support. This is going to happen with any generic editor, depending on who set up the editing template for that synth... and in some cases, how the synth designer set it up. With some boxes, certain things just can't be done except from the front panel. For each of these programs, some combination of (synth + program + template + user) seems to come out "Gee, this is better than my dedicated patch editor" while some other combination is lacking in some way. As you might guess from my tone w.r.t. user interfaces, I'm not afraid of modifying the templates or writing them from scratch. All of the generic editors give you some facility to do this, although the reviews don't cover this from the programmer's point of view. * * * Glenn: thanks for the info on X-or. See also: <59603@aurs01.UUCP> posted last week, for an excellent review by whitcomb@aurs01.uucp (Jonathan Whitcomb). -- Ken Sallenger / ken@bigbird.csd.scarolina.edu / +1 803 777-6551 Computer Services Division / 1244 Blossom ST / Columbia, SC 29208
burger@convex1.tcs.tulane.edu (rodney lim) (03/09/91)
I just got MIDI Quest not too long ago for my PC, after I had read the
Electronic Musician review that gave it a 10, but right before Keyboard's
scathing review (which says a lot given the usual nature of their reviews).
If that review had come out a month eariler, I could have saved myself a
lot of grief. As mentioned by another poster, the manual is user-illiterate.
Also, the characters displayed on my screen look so small and compressed, I
just about have to squint to read them. You almost need a magnifying glass
to read the (non)help files. Another annoyance is that if you're working in
the ESQ1 editor, the whole screen isn't shown; you have to scroll back and
forth if you want to edit parameters at the top and bottom of the screen (I
don't know if this is also true for the other templates.) And if you don't
have a mouse, you're going to lose patience quick because keyboard control is
pretty cumbersome and slow. And the biggest problem I'm having with it right
now is that I can't get it to receive patch data over MIDI from my D-50 without
running into a MIDI communication error. The manual says it's a problem with
not having up-to-date software in my D-50, which brings up two questions:
--How do I find out what O.S. my D-50 is running under?
and
--How can I contact Roland to upgrade to the current O.S.? Do they
have a phone number?
Thanks in advance.
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