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Editing PackagesArticle from International Musician & Recording World, May 1985 |
Tony Mills investigates the noiseless properties of your micro
Over the past few weeks we've concentrated on the most obvious musical applications of man's best friend, the micro computer (anybody who thought it was the dog go to the back of the class). But why be obvious? Let's be obscure for a change — let's look at micro-musical activities which don't make a noise, which don't arrange patterns of notes for you, and which make no sense whatsoever — unless you've come up against any one of a few very common musical problems.
We're talking editing packages here — sound and parameter editing, keyboard split storage, parameter display, all the things you didn't know you needed and find you couldn't live without once you got them. Y'see, micro computers can't tell the difference between a musical note and any other piece of information expressed as a stream of digits, and the MIDI standard transmits a lot more than boring old crotchets and quavers.
The first obvious use for non-music based micro packages lies in the display of individual parameters, or aspects of a synth sound. And what better parameters to display than those of the Yamaha DX7, which boasts 147 different settings for every sound and one small LCD display to list them all? As we know, the DX7's been something of a smasheroonie in both the stage and studio stakes, but it's hardly easy to create your own sounds (even when you do come to terms with the basic method of operation of FM synthesis) because there's just too much information involved in setting up a new sound to get at it all at once.
Editing packages such as SIEL's DX9/DX7 Editor help out by reading information transmitted by the DX7 in what is known as System Exclusive Mode — the set of codes reserved for individual manufacturers to play with information unique to their particular products. In Yamaha's case, they've filled the System Exclusive codes with information on the level of each of the DX's parameters, and these can be translated by your micro and displayed on a monitor.
The way the information is put over is all-important, and in the case of the SIEL package they've chosen a semi-graphical style which allows you to see the levels used in any particular sound as well as read them off numerically. You can still change sounds on the synth's slider control, but now you have a moving graphic display to help you see what you're doing.
Rosetti, under the Jellinghaus Music Software banner, have a very similar package available, like SIEL's on disk for the Commodore 64. The Jellinghaus range is developing all the time, and the next innovation is likely to be an intelligent editor — one which will automatically change all the DX7's envelope shapes when you change just one, for instance.
SIEL have also developed editing packages for some of their own synths, not because they're mind-bogglingly complex but because they can't all edit themselves. The Expander 6, for instance, is a keyboardless version of the velocity-sensitive Opera 6/DK600 design, but it lacks editing controls and so unless you have an Opera or DK600 you'd be stuck with the preset sounds. The solution — one which takes the Expander into a much wider market, for instance that of DX7 owners who'd appreciate a velocity-responsive analogue synth to add to their FM keyboard — is the Expander Sound Editor package (£54.35) for the Commodore 64 or Spectrum.
Available on disk or tape for the 64 and on tape only for the Spectrum, the ESE package draws lovingly detailed pictures of an imaginary control layout on the TV screen for you to edit using the computer's cursor keys. You actually see the 'knobs' turning as you make parameter changes, and there's a short melody and chord sequence to check the altered sounds if your controlling keyboard isn't to hand.
Rosetti aren't content with editing the DX7 either. If you own a Sequential Circuits Six-Trak synth, you can now display oscillator, filter and amplifier ADSR'sin bar chart form, create and store libraries of sounds on disk and generally muck about with your synth from the computer. Sequential themselves have a similar package too.
The Germans love this sort of thing. The Frankfurt Music Fair was full of Commodore 64's running various kinds of editing packages, including a very colourful DX7 display with a library of voices from Steinberg Research. Although there's no news of plans to market the software over here (and remember that with all this software you need an appropriate interface for your computer as well), it could be worth getting in touch with them at (Contact Details). Or you could try Micro Music, also of Hamburg, who have a stack of sequencer and drum machine packages in addition to a DX7 Sound Design programme and a DX7 Bankloader holding 8 x 32 sounds. Contact them at (Contact Details).
With the words Sound Design, we come to an English company who have another range of DX7/DX9 Editor and Library packages. These are intended for the Spectrum, and so rely on tape operation and may be a tad on the slow side. Still, if you're used to doing tape dumps of Juno or Prophet memories you'll be OK — at least you'll have the ability to store DX7 programmeson tape, which isa hell of a lot cheaper than buying RAM cartridges. Contact Sound Design Studio at (Contact Details).
Another English company into sound editing is EMR, marketed through Rose Morris (now Korg UK for the high-tech stuff). Their packages refer to individual synths such as the DX7, and they have interfaces for an unusually wide range of micros — the BBC, C64, Spectrum, Amstrad, the MSX range and so on.
One step more ambitious is SIEL's Data Base programme (£39.65), which is independent of the synth used — in fact it can work with almost any synth except a DX — and which stores large numbers of sound under generic headings such as String Sounds, Brass Sounds, Effects and so on.
Editing and library packages aren't the only 'non-musical' software around. Looking once again at the Rosetti range, their Master Keyboard allows any MIDI synth to control several others through a computer-generated multiple keyboard split. You can define many sets of splits together with the appropriate patch numbers, and so could leave most of your synths offstage or in a rack at the back of the studio. Programme examples could include an octave monophonic bass played on one synth, followed by an octave and a half of strings on another, an octave of brass, an octave lead sound and five different effect sounds on the remaining notes — all called up simultaneously from one keyboard. Pretty powerful!
The uses of micros are increasing all the time, into area no-one ever conceived when MIDI was developed. For instance, there'll shortly be a SIEL package which creates non-degrading echoes on MIDI synths by repeating notes with variable volume and filter settings, with effects related to a conventional tape or electronic echo unit. And of course there are other music-related applications about to be exploited — track sheets, accounting databases, instrument stock lists, stage layouts, light shows and much more.
Obviously some of these packages will turn out to be a little gimmicky, but there's no denying the ability of a microcomputer to make music simpler and more accessible rather than obscure and technically complex. It's all down to the way you use them.
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Feature by Mark Jenkins writing as Tony Mills
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