Leto Atreides registers interest in R.M.S.'s delivery — a 12-channel MIDI 'studio' program for the Commodore 64.

It's come to something when you can stay in of a morning expecting delivery of a huge crate by Red Star Parcels and end up with a small floppy disk in an envelope. Seriously, the software revolution has cut costs enormously for those using a MIDI synthesiser setup, and the latest release from RMS (Rosetti Music Software, the UK distributors for Jellinghaus Muzik System) could well save you the expense of buying previously vital items such as four- or eight-track tape machines. This 12-Channel Studio comes in the form of a disk, for the Commodore 64 only, at least for the moment.

Like several other software packages intended for the large and small Jellinghaus interfaces (around £90 and £30 respectively, the former being identical to SIEL's interface), the Studio can address any of the 16 MIDI channels, and so could control up to 16 synthesisers if you were lucky enough to own such a setup. If you don't, remember that some new MIDI modules (such as those by SIEL, Korg and Roland) are offering cheap keyboardless MIDI power, and that some synths such as the Roland Jupiter 6 can offer two MIDI voices either side of a keyboard split. Other possibilities could be the under-appreciated SCI Six-Trak for six monophonic voices, or the new MIDI-equipped home keyboards from SIEL, JVC, Hohner or Casio.

Up and running

Loading up the 12-Channel Studio gives a number of options — external sync to a 24 ppqn (Roland-style) drum machine, or MIDI clock output to a MIDI-equipped drum machine such as the SCI Drumtraks or Roland TR909, use of footswitches and so on. Having got past these, the main display is a chart of the 12 channels with various operational information about each one. The first channel is called R, and any notes entered are played into this channel. If you're happy with the music, use the cursor keys to move the cursor to another channel, and hit F5 twice to copy the information from R to this channel. You can then use R again to record another set of notes.

We want Information.

The information displayed under each channel is as follows:

On/Off: Mutes channel on playback, Units: Shows number of beats used in each track, Mode: In playback OSTI (nato) loops a track, SYNC plays it once each time the longest track restarts, Transp: Transposes in semitones in playback, Volume: Shows key velocity for synths which can respond, Filter: Not as in VCF, but to remove unwanted information to save capacity. Maximum capability is K (keyboard) + C (Controller—pitch bend for example) + P (Patchchanges), MIDI: MIDI Channel.

Once you've filled a selection of tracks with information played on your synth (monophonically or polyphonically) you can replay the completed piece, choosing any combination of channels to play, change tempo by hitting T and the +/- keys, make changes while the piece is playing and so on. But this isn't the main point of the Studio program, because realtime performances are limited to the keyboard ability of the musician.

I've got a little list...

If you choose List (F8) you go to a new menu giving choices of List, Print and Edit, which let you select a track and list out its every MIDI event. It's odd to see your best blistering solo reduced to lists of MIDI On/Off and Volume figures, but it can be done, and in the Studio program it's done with one thing in mind — versatile editing facilities.

Suppose you keep playing a part but can't get it quite right, or produce a blinding improvised solo with one or two bum notes in it. The Studio lets you call up the track in question, List it, go to the offending note (easily identified by measure numbers at the side of the screen) and change it by inserting Note, Octave and Volume if desired. You can also open up a space to insert Patch changes, which start from Patch 00 (be careful if you're using a Korg Poly 800, which counts from 11, for instance).

Importantly, it's also possible to Quantize tracks to 1/32 note. It would probably be desirable to quantize all your repetitive backing tracks but to leave the lead lines alone for the sake of a little variation and human feel. You can combine the information in several tracks by connecting MIDI Out to MIDI In on the interface and pressing F1 with all tracks to be left alone switched Off. This is a little unwieldy but works well enough.

Sequences can be dumped onto disk and the standard Commodore 64 disk functions can be used to combine them into a more complex polyphonic sequence (rather than chaining them together). It's a pity that these kinds of functions aren't part of the program itself, but the MIDI listing section must use an awful lot of memory!

The Studio's Owner's Manual is a cryptic leaflet, but one in which all the information you need is hidden if you read carefully enough. There are several useful tips for the best results, together with some information for operation procedures with the SCI Drumtraks, Yamaha DX7 and other specific instruments, which is always much appreciated.

Summing up

Price is likely to be around £99, which seems a lot for a single disk, but of course it's all a matter of what you can do with it. Total capacity is over 7,000 notes, so you could certainly write some very long and complex tunes and play them straight onto stereo tape rather than multitracking. If you have a few synths to use, this could mean the difference between getting away with a four-track machine and having to go up to eight-track, which will cost you a lot more than £99!

RMS/Jellinghaus are showing a lot of imagination in their programming, within the necessary limitations of the Commodore 64. The combination of real time and step time/quantization in the 12-channel package is unique at the moment, making this particular studio in an envelope well worth investigating.