Xref: utzoo rec.music.synth:19572 comp.music:2731 Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!mvb.saic.com!ncr-sd!ncrcae!opusc!ken From: ken@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu (Ken Sallenger) Newsgroups: rec.music.synth,comp.music Subject: Re: opinions wanted: "Xor" vs "MIDI Quest" Summary: portability wanted Keywords: reviewer bias, portability Message-ID: <1991Mar7.173853.12829@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu> Date: 7 Mar 91 17:38:53 GMT References: <1991Mar7.022847.26622@riacs.edu> Organization: Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia Lines: 99 I, too, am looking for a generic patch editor/librarian. Although I'm leaning toward X-Or, more info on these programs would be appreciated. My criteria include the fact that I'm on an Atari platform, while my brother is using a PClone. Assuming that we can agree on a program, it would be _really_ nice to have the same one so that I can take my patch files to his house. As far as I know, X-or and Midi Quest are the only programs available for both platforms. Both are reputed to have file formats portable across the versions. NOTE though that the Atari is a Big-Endian processor (Motorola MC680X0) and the PC is Little-Endian (Intel 80XX, 80X86). Has anyone experience with transporting data files from PC to Mac/Atari/Amiga? This really shouldn't be a problem, unless one is dealing with some numeric quantity bigger than 8 bits, in which case the different architectures store the bytes differently. The program would then have to store it in some order agreed to by both implementations. I don't think my gear has any parameters bigger than an 8-bit integer... * * * In article <1991Mar7.022847.26622@riacs.edu> glennd@athena.arc.nasa.gov (Glenn Deardorff) writes: => You may want to take a look at Keyboard's recent reviews of X-Or, Midi => Quest, and Hybrid Arts' GenEdit... => The review of Midi Quest is in the latest Keyboard issue, that of X-Or => is from two issues before that. The X-Or write-up is a comparative review with GenEdit for the Atari. I think that they reviewed X-Or on a PC platform. They didn't have a usable copy of Midi Quest in time for that article, so it was reviewed in the most recent issue. On a MacIntosh.... At about the same time as the earlier article (November?), Electronic Musician carried a quickie review of Midi Quest (PC version) which was very favorable. => ... According to them, [i.e. Keyboard in the most recent article] => Midi Quest came in a distant => third, due to (if memory serves me) a poorly designed user interface => (non-intuitive), I took this with a large grain of salt. It seemed to me that they really didn't like the UI because it wasn't *Mac-like* (remember they were reviewing the Mac version). For me this is not a big consideration. I don't use Mac software unless I really have to use it (i.e. at work). My Atari boots up into a command-line interpreter... you get the idea. As long as it looks the same across the platforms on which I'll use it, I'll be happy. The X-Or review points out that one has to scroll around in a large virtual window to get to all the parameters, and that this takes time. Gen-Edit, at least, lets one jump by hot-key or -button directly to the sub-page in question. I don't recall how one MQ handles moving among parameters. => rather pedestrian librarian facilities (supposedly => enhanced with database-type keyword search facilities in the latest => version, however), Now *this* I take seriously. Everything I've read leads me to think that X-Or has the edge here. A couple of years of trying to invent meaningful 8-character file names for my patch banks makes this (almost) a clincher. Of course, I'll probably still have to load the file in order to do the keyword search, yes? Can I ask it to search all the patch files in sub-directory X for matching keywords. => and less-than-complete patch editing facilities for => synths they supposedly support. This is going to happen with any generic editor, depending on who set up the editing template for that synth... and in some cases, how the synth designer set it up. With some boxes, certain things just can't be done except from the front panel. For each of these programs, some combination of (synth + program + template + user) seems to come out "Gee, this is better than my dedicated patch editor" while some other combination is lacking in some way. As you might guess from my tone w.r.t. user interfaces, I'm not afraid of modifying the templates or writing them from scratch. All of the generic editors give you some facility to do this, although the reviews don't cover this from the programmer's point of view. * * * Glenn: thanks for the info on X-or. See also: <59603@aurs01.UUCP> posted last week, for an excellent review by whitcomb@aurs01.uucp (Jonathan Whitcomb). -- Ken Sallenger / ken@bigbird.csd.scarolina.edu / +1 803 777-6551 Computer Services Division / 1244 Blossom ST / Columbia, SC 29208