Digital diagnostics, techno troubles, glitches in your Gizmos; they're all in a day's work for The Mix medical department. Send your queries to: The Help File, (Contact Details)

Blasting off

QI used to own a simple Amiga 500 Plus, which with the aid of Protracker gave me hours of fun collecting and sequencing samples. Everything was simple and easy, but unfortunately the sound quality and versatility were crap.

To correct this, I spent over a thousand on a 486 33MHz PC with 4Mb of RAM and a 225MB hard drive, to which I added a Soundblaster Pro 16 sound card and Cubase for Windows V1.02. To my despair, I cannot get it to do what I want.

Could you tell me what else I need to buy or do, to achieve the same type of result from my PC that I got from my Amiga, and how much it will it cost, as I am now skint and the only thing I can find worth doing on this thing is typing this letter.
Andrew Timms, Shepshed, Leicestershire.

AYou want your PC to have the same crap sound quality and versatility as your Amiga 500+? I thought it already did! Seriously though, what you want is a sampling package for the PC. Sell your very basic Soundblaster card, and get a card which allows you to load samples into it such as Turtle Beach's Monterey card. This is accessible by Cubase, meaning you can play the samples from there, as you were used to doing with the Amiga. RB

Meaningful exchanges

QFirstly, congratulations on a great idea — a CD and CD-ROM. You even put out Apple stuff on it. Amazing. I have only recently discovered THE MIX, hence me stating the obvious. But I do have some questions:

Is there a piece of software (commercial or shareware) for saving patterns from my HR16 in SMF format or other on the LCIII? Is there a MIDI file/SMF utility that converts MIDI files from the PC to Mac and vice versa. An add-on for Apple File Exchange? And, could I get a shareware editor and/or librarian for my TX81Z? Many thanks for any light you can shed.
Alex Jones, Brookwood, Woking.

AThe HR16 is well featured for a drum machine, with a MIDI Out port through which you can record your patterns as MIDI files in your sequencer. Simply take a lead from the MIDI Out of the HR16, plug it into the MIDI In of your computer, set your sequencer to external sync, press record on that, then play on the Alesis. That will activate the sequencer, and record your patterns for you to save either as MIDI files, or in the sequencer's proprietary format. If you want to save the internal patterns of the HR16 in their own format, for loading back into the drum machine at a later stage, it's a matter of initiating a SysEx dump from the front of the Alesis while your sequencer is recording. The resulting SysEx information recorded can also be saved as a standard MIDI file, and replaying it from your sequencer will reload those patterns into the HR16.

With regard to your question about exchanging MIDI files between Mac and PC, there isn't normally a problem. MIDI is a standard, and MIDI files saved onto a disk formatted to MS-DOS format from Apple File Exchange will be readable from a PC. The problem arises importing MIDI files into The Mac from a PC. The Mac needs to be told the file is a MIDI file, and given a creator program to run it (Cubase for example). This is normally done using Resedit, a facility for attributing those parameters to Mac files. Simpler is to get yourself a copy of PC Exchange. Once installed on your Mac, this nifty little program reads MS DOS disks transparently, with no need for Apple File Exchange, and it even allows you to set your Mac to automatically open your sequencer whenever a MIDI file is double clicked. PC Exchange comes with Mac System 7.1 system disks and is available from your Apple Dealer. RB

Starting out

Qis there a home for the technically bewildered? I want to set up an eight track studio at home, and I want to have something more than just a demo — e.g. a cassette multi-track — I'd like to have a fairly good master at the end. After a brief bit of research, I ended up with a list of equipment: Alesis ADAT, Spirit 16:8:16, PMC TB1s, Samson 150 amplifier, Aiwa 1100S DAT, Tascam 102, Neumann TLM193, Lexicon Alex, Behringer Composer. The only problem is, it's a bit expensive!

Can you suggest any cheaper alternatives? What about the Fostex R8 — a lot of people are tending to favour analogue recording. What about an AKG C3000 instead of the TLM193? Would I be better off going for a cheaper set up, and spending more on sound enhancement like the Ultrafex? Or perhaps even forget that and the Composer, and get the TLA valve pre-amp and compressor. How do I end up with the best sound? I hope you can help me, as I need some answers before I spend loads of money unwisely.
John Hogan, County Wicklow, Ireland

AYou're definitely thinking along the right lines in replacing the ADAT in the above suggested setup, John. The Tascam R8 would save you about a thousand pounds, and the debate on sound quality is only just beginning. There's undoubtedly more warmth in the R8, and you certainly wouldn't suffer any loss in quality. Likewise, the AKG C3000 will provide just as good sound quality, as the Neumann and save you a few hundred pounds into the bargain.

Why not think about replacing the Spirit with its brother the Studio LC to save a few more precious pennies, whilst maintaining the same audio quality. Richard Allen's excellent A88 monitors will provide excellent monitoring and save you another hundred pounds, the Lexicon Reflex provides the same professional quality reverb as the Alex for a saving of another hundred pounds, and similarly the Behringer Autocom will do the same sterling job of compression as its big brother for another hundred pounds saving. How you end up with the best sound is finally down to you, but the kit outlined above should give you a head start. RB

Muddle-headed MIDI

QApart from being a MIDI retard, my problem involves the setting up of my MIDI equipment. My system consists of a computer, Fostex R8, Akai ME80P MIDI patchbay, and various keyboards, effects, and so on. When I am working on the MIDI sequencing side of things, my set up looks like this: (figure 1)

I have no problem with this, until I introduce my Fostex R8 reel to reel. Obviously, when striping the tape from the sync signal I need to re-route my system to this: (figure 2)

Another, and most infuriating problem is that when I actually have my reel in sync with the computer (when the striping is complete), and tracks recorded on reel are playing in time with the MIDI gear, I can't add extra parts on to the sequencer via the master keyboard. By this time, the configuration has been changed to this: (figure 3)

Now, the big question! Is there a way of utilising the ME80P so I don't have to physically swap MIDI cables around? Can I possibly just flick between different patch numbers for the different MIDI scenarios? Maybe I need something else, or perhaps more than one ME80P to achieve this?

One more thing (sorry). Having various effects boxes that I program, I will soon have to send system exclusives to dump their data to the sequencer. Is this another job that needs re-routing?
Peter Ford, Northallerton, Yorkshire.

AOf course there is a way of utilising the ME80P so you don't have to swap cables about, that's what a patchbay is for. It seems as though you are a little confused by Akai's insistence on terming the 10 MIDI Out/Thru's on the ME80P as MIDI Through. These form the heart of the ME80P's switchable routing. Simply set up your cables as shown in the diagram opposite and then program your ME80P so that the MIDI In signal going to the MIDI Out/Thru port is taken from the appropriate source.

The ME80P has 128 memories to store your patches, so memory one might route the signal coming in from the master keyboard to the MIDI In port of the computer, memory two would take the signal coming in from the computer and send it on to the R8 for striping the tape, whilst memory three would perform the reverse function, mapping the input from the R8's Out port to the In port on the computer, allowing you to run your set-up with the R8 as master. Using setup number one with the computer as master running the R8, would enable you to record as many more tracks as possible in your sequencer from the master keyboard. Obviously other setups could be programmed and saved, routing the output from your various synth modules through to the input of your computer for SysEx dumping and editing as well. RB