If the humblest answering machine can now get its brain around hard-disk recording, so can your PC. Quad Studio is a budget-price four-track recording package of a professional calibre which you can run on a 486. Danny McAleer monitors the technological trickle-down...

The very idea of hard disk recording on my PC has me rifling the first aid box for some aspirin. If not for the aspirin, certainly for some Norton Utilities liver salts.

But not all hard disk recording packages require a zillion megabytes of drive space and a 100MHz CPU. Quad studio is a simple, yet quite powerful, program that should gently ease even the most paranoid D2D-phobes into believing that it is a process as natural as having your three Weetabix in the morning.

Accompanied by the Turtle Beach Monterey card, the Wave SE sample editor program and a disk full of other useful utilities and drivers, Quad Studio has all you need to get started straight away. I would recommend that you remove any other soundcard and all its corresponding lines in the system.ini and autoexec.bat files, to avoid any conflicting IRQ addresses.

It sounds a bit drastic, but I have found that it is the easiest way to keep your PC happy, and your system files up to date. The card itself features the standard mini-jack connectors for input, output and input connection from an external CD-ROM, via the 'aux' socket. A joystick/MIDI interface is also included, as is the option of installing your internal CD-ROM drive on the card.

The manual stipulates that to run Quad Studio you will need at least a 486sx running at 33MHz, and at least 4Mbytes of RAM. You will also need about ten megabytes per minute of hard disk space for your samples (bilious noises from my PC's liver).

Down to business

Quad Studio has been designed with the beginner in mind, but is by no means short on features. In fact, it has a very clever option in the setup menu that switches between beginner and expert mode, the latter of which offers more functions, very conducive to creativity but not altogether straightforward for the technologically challenged. This way, you can master the basic functions before tackling some of the more interesting stuff.

Each of the four tracks has a main fader and corresponding LED bargraph, which displays the playback and record input levels. Panning is controlled with horizontal sliders that sit just above the main fader. In 'expert' mode, each track has in addition a series of three buttons (which default to Off) for routing tracks to certain colour coded groups, a mute, solo and edit buttons. Mute and solo are fairly self-explanatory. Clicking on Edit calls the accompanying Wave SE program, so that you can do some fine-tuning of your sample.

To begin a 'project', you must first select a track to record on. It may be a prudent time to plug a sound source into the Turtle Beach soundcard, or the sound of a dropped pin may drown out your doodlings. Line level sources work best, particularly those from CD and CD-ROM players, 'though you can set up the input mixer for any level.

Clicking on the status box at the top of the track, you are presented with a menu: Off, Play, or Record. When you select Record, you will be asked for a filename and then the type of sample. Options here include the sample rate (fixed at either 11, 22 or 44kHz), mono or stereo (where stereo records over two tracks), and a small notepad for adding comments. If you are either very organised, or completely inept, then the Comments page will be a useful tool for recording how the sample was taken, and from what source, in case you need to do it again another time.

Other functions on Quad Studio include MIDI implementation and SMPTE syncronisation. You can actually assign any external MIDI controller to any of the faders or buttons, which can be quite useful for using a modulation wheel or something instead of the mouse, thus producing smoother fades.

Once you have sampled in your tracks, you can then replay them with the Mix button depressed. This allows you to record fader movements, pan settings and mute/solo buttons in real-time. After you have finished, Quad Studio asks if this was the take that you would like to keep, or whether it's one for the bin. You can then mix all the tracks down on to one track (or two if you want to keep it in stereo), and start sampling in some more stuff.

Waving about

The Wave SE editor can either be used on its own, or called up within the Quad Studio program by either clicking on the edit button (in 'Expert' mode only) or by choosing Edit from the pull down menu.

It is sensible 'though, first to tell Quad Studio where the Wave program is on your hard drive. This is achieved in the Options menu, much in the same way as using the 'Browse' command in the Windows program manager. Wave SE is nothing more than a sample editor (so I didn't need any aspirins here either) with the ability to have up to four samples in at a time for simultaneous editing.

The best reason to load more than one sample in at a time is to take advantage of the mix (perish the thought - Ed) and crossfade samples options, combining two together to create an often bizarre cocktail.

As per usual there are a number of slicing options, and also an array of paste types including Paste insert, Over, Fill, and Mix paste. You also have the option to audition the Paste buffer before you slap it across something completely unsuitable. Still, there is an unconditional Undo function that will do away with any rash errors, which is quite fortunate really, as some of the tools, like Fade in and out, and Mute, don't have any sort of confirmation before they carry out their editing.

Aside from these implements, other devices lingering around the toolbox include the amusing Satanic message making reverse sample function, compression and expansion (by percentage), and a comprehensive EQ section. The EQ has two stages of complexity: sensibly easy, and bemusing but entertaining. Seriously 'though, you can choose to either select one of the preset EQ settings which are themselves more than adequate, or create your own, using a set of sweepable EQ pots.

Once you have finished editing the sample, you can then save it and return to the track window in Quad Studio to hear what it sounds like in the context of the complete song.

Trimmings

You may very well think that it is Christmas (and I suppose it nearly is...) when you open up your Windows program manager and find all these new programs in, but there's no flannel (so you probably won't find the software equivalent of a jumper from granny).

Firstly, there is a mouse-driven virtual keyboard accessory for testing out the GM sounds on the Monterey board. It also features an assignable eight pad drum kit to mess around on. The accessory Samplestore can only be used if you have installed a SIPP memory module on your PC. If you did get such an upgrade, then you can use the Synthesiser function on the soundcard.

Perhaps more usefully, there is a mixer page that controls the volumes of everything coming and going out. You can edit the levels from both the external sources, the wave output and main output, and then save these settings so that it defaults to them every time you load Windows.

A graphic input level meter is supplied, which is as useful as it is entertaining, with options to alter input levels and calibration for the A to D convertors. There is also a MIDI patchbay and MIDI thru utility to make sure the use of your soundcard is as painless as possible.

Verdict

It does rather seem as if there is no excuse to put off getting a hard disk recording package for your PC now. Quad Studio takes no longer to set up and install than any Windows program, and nor does it eat as much hard disk space as something like Cubase Audio. Great for people like me, with only one hard drive with everything on.

It certainly doesn't have the complexity or the features of Logic Audio, and for an all-in-one starter you couldn't possibly go far wrong. I have to say it was really quite easy to master, and thus I declare myself converted.

The essentials...

Price inc VAT: £489 (or £229 without soundcard)

More from: Et Cetera, (Contact Details).