hen@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Bill Henneman) (07/12/87)
Boston University has been growing a digital music studio,+primarily designed to supply sound for animations producedin our Computer Graphics Lab. The studio has a Macintosh, an an Atari 1040ST with B/W monitor I picked up used for $300. The studio also has access to Suns, Encores, and an IBM 3090 (on each of these we have some student-generated software). I originally bought the Hybrid Arts MIDI track because it had the interface box to do SMPTE, but I immediately fell in love with their sequencing facilities. I use the Mac, (do a little Jam Factory every morning) but for day-in-day-out work, I use the Atari w/ Hybrid Arts MIDI track (along with Gen Patch & various 'droids). They have the cleanest user interface I can find on any of the packages: somebody inside Hybrid Arts knows how to put together software that is intuitive to a musician and at the same time feels right to the compunerd. Every visitor to the studio who has experience with some other hardware/software combination (particularly Dr.. T) has told us that our system is unbelievably much easier to use - they very often end up grumbling about how their software is too much like a spreadsheet. I would sooner give up one of our keyboards than give up the MIDI track. Another suggestion: I would also say that the B/W monitor is much better than a color monitor if you are going to be using the software for any length of time. Color is very useful for cramming lots of information on a screen, but your eyes get glazed over much faster. I started with an Atari 1040 w/ color monitor, but I took it home as soon as I got the b&w Atari.