Mention hard disk recording systems and few people would think of the PC as a likely host computer. But get the software and the interfacing right and things can start to get very interesting...

It may come as some surprise that there are as many, if not more, hard disk recording systems available for the PC as for the Mac; and this is one area in which the Atari ST still cannot really compete. In line with PC prices in general, the cost of such systems is falling and finally coming within the reach of small studios and serious home users. One system which certainly falls within this category is the Studio Audio Disk Editor - or SADiE for short.

Studio Audio are a young company, formed just over a year ago to market and manufacture their digital audio signal processing system. The boards which make up this system have been successfully incorporated into a number of well-known UK OEM-produced audio and video products already, and when the idea for SADiE emerged, all that remained was to write the software.

We are looking at Version 1.5 here, and it's designed to run under Windows version 3.x. I had no problems with either v3.0 or v3.1 - but this is to be expected since it has obviously been written with v3.1 in mind. The program makes heavy use of 3D buttons and sliders to provide an extremely attractive and intuitive user interface - the standard Windows hourglass icon has even been replaced with a steaming cup of coffee!

Installation takes less than 10 minutes, and involves nothing more complicated than inserting both cards into spare expansion slots in the PC, connecting the two cards together with a small ribbon cable, attaching the SCSI disk to the XS card and finally running the cables from the breakout box to the rear panels of the cards. If you do not already have a PC, Studio Audio can supply a complete system with all hardware installed and tested.

On firing up SADiE for the first time, you are presented with three windows. The first is the Level Control window, which acts as a mini mixing desk and provides 4 independently controllable sliders with Mute and Solo buttons and bar graph LED metering. The meters provide a peak-reading facility (where the top LED stays lit for a short period) and can show the absolute maximum signal level of the recorded material. It is also possible to lock together two stereo pairs or all 4 volume sliders in their relative positions, thus allowing you to control overall volume without disturbing the mix. Studio Audio are currently considering adding input faders as well, giving the user the opportunity to mix further inputs with the stereo (or 4 channel) output at mixdown time.

The second window is the ubiquitous Transport Control window which graphically displays all the usual tape transport controls (Play, Stop, Record, Fast Forward, Rewind), along with a digital counter and the ability to set up to 10 location memories. There are three additional time displays besides the 'Current Time' - one is used to set the point to which the editing system returns when the Locate button is pressed, and the other two are used to set left and right locator points used for cycling round a loop and the drop in/out points when recording.

All the locate point time displays can be modified by either typing directly into the window or by waiting until the recording reaches the desired point during playback and then pressing the Shift key plus the appropriate Auto-Locate button. This makes for an easy life when reviewing recordings since it is possible to listen through the recording, highlighting particular points using the Shift and Locate To buttons, and then storing these settings in the 10 location memories.

When reviewing these sections later, it is a simple matter to click on any of the memory buttons (causing the Locate To display to be updated with the stored time) and press the Locate button, which moves you straight to the desired location. A nice feature here is that when the Transport window is minimised, the main controls (Play, Stop, Fast Forward and Rewind) appear on the Toolbar at the bottom of the screen.

The third window is the Playlist window which contains the Edit Display List (EDL) and acts as a digital splicing block - more on this in a moment. Any of these windows can be activated and deactivated by pressing the appropriate icon on the Toolbar along the bottom of the screen. One of these icons brings up the Edit window which is where the bulk of your work will be done. After setting up such mundane items as the channels on which you wish to record, the source (analogue or digital), sample rate and resolution, you can record by simply pressing the Record button and adjusting the levels accordingly.

Preview buttons cause a small section of the selected material to be played either side of, leading up to or just quickly within a track and making the locate points almost redundant.

Along the top of the screen are several menu options including File (from where you can save or load playlists and clip files, and manage your audio disk space); Edit (providing Cut, Copy and Paste operations), and Tools where you can set options such as 2 or 4 channel operation, synchronisation method (SMPTE or MTC), pre and post-roll times and cross fade defaults.

Sound quality was, as you would expect from such a system, excellent. When recording material from CD or DAT the recorded result was indistinguishable from the original - providing care was taken with the recording levels. I completed a small advertising project using SADiE which involved taking sections of a track from a CD, extending an instrumental break in the middle to provide background for a voice-over (previously recorded onto DAT), adding one or two sampled sound effects on the fourth track and recording the finished tracks back to DAT. Because the entire operation had been performed within the digital domain, the finished results were outstanding.

Everything works well in SADiE, too, and Studio Audio are to be congratulated for bringing such a comprehensive and robust product to market in such a short space of time. And it seems they aren't about to sit back and rest on their laurels either: features planned for the next version (in early 1993) include 24-bit sampling resolution, continuous resync mode for SMPTE and MTC synchronisation, track bouncing and stereo mixdown (allowing panning of each output stream in the master stereo output), equalisation, compression, automated mixing, waveform editing, time-stretch and varispeed. What's more, the upgrade, normally priced at £995, will be available free to all registered V1.5 users.

One can only predict a bright future for SADiE...

More From: Studio Audio & Video Ltd (Contact Details)