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From: karl@sugar.UUCP (Karl Lehenbauer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,rec.music.synth
Subject: Review of SoundScape Pro MIDI Studio (LONG)
Message-ID: <180@sugar.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 13-Jun-87 17:23:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: sugar.180
Posted: Sat Jun 13 17:23:18 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Jun-87 05:57:52 EDT
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 177
Keywords: MIDI soundscape sequencers
Xref: mnetor comp.sys.amiga:5770 rec.music.synth:927


In addition to my job as a "software engineer", I am also a semipro musician
and I am responding here to the uncritical reviews of SoundScape Pro
MIDI Studio sequencer and music playing program (for the Amiga) that I have
found in the Amiga-related magazines with this mini-review.

The Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) is, as you probably know,
a standard by which computers, sythesizers, drum machines, audio effects
processors (and other more exotic devices) can be interconnected to exchange
data and (hopefully) play music.  MIDI adapters are widely available for the
Amiga and are generally priced at around $50.

Sequencers are special purpose computers or programs for general purpose
computers (usually PCs) that can simulate a multitrack tape recorder by
which one can play a part on a synthesizer and have the computer record the
notes and their timing information.  The computer can then play back this
part while the musician records additional parts.  In this way, songs are
assembled.  Most sequencers can do some other things that multitrack tape
records cannot, such as quantizing (altering the timing of the recorded notes
to "round" them off to some timing interval, such as a sixteenth note),
non-realtime note entry, slower-than-wanted realtime note entry (for those
of us with sloppy technique), and non-realtime editing.  Some sequencers
can print the recorded music out in standard musical notation.

SoundScape is a music sequencer program for the Amiga.  Like most sequencers
that run on personal computers, the user interface is a simulation of a
multi-track tape recorder.  In addition to the capabilities listed above
(minus the printing), it has the capability of playing music through the Amiga's
four internal voices in addition to or instead of any synthesizers or drum
machines that are connected to it.  Also, one can use the Amiga keyboard to
enter or play music instead of the usual synthesizer keyboard.  This is
very useful for Amiga owners who have no outboard MIDI equipment.  :-)

A revolutionary innovation in SoundScape is the patch panel.  
The patch panel allows one to route MIDI data to, from and through "modules."
Modules are programs than can generate and/or process MIDI data.  The
Amiga keyboard is used as a MIDI input device by means of a module that
can read the keyboard and write MIDI data.  The synthesizer keyboard is
used as by means of a module that reads the MIDI input port and writes out
the MIDI data.

Modules exist, in turn, for routing MIDI data to the Amiga audio device and
the MIDI output port.  Other modules provided with SoundScape are a tape
recorder, a MIDI mixer and a clock.  These modules are interconnected as
desired by the user via the patch panel.  So you can play your synthesizer
from the Amiga keyboard, play the Amiga from you synthesizer keyboard,
record with either, play back to both and much more.

Additional modules are becoming available from SoundScape such as a MIDI
librarian (it should be able to store the patches in your synths), a MIDI
data processor (split your keyboard, do cross fades, etc.) and others.
These modules can be written in C.  (Todor Fay, the author of SoundScape,
wrote an article in the current (I think it's June) issue of Amazing
Computing describing how to write these programs and providing several
examples.)

For semipro and professional use, SoundScape, and the Amiga in general,
has a deadly drawback.  The system cannot synchronize to tape.
Other personal computer's MIDI interfaces can read and write a signal
onto a multitrack audiotape recorder which they can later read and use to
stay synchronized with what has already been recorded on tape.  The Atari ST
can't do this, either.  (An interface that can do this is the Roland MPU401, a
microprocessor-based controller in it's own box that relies on simple
interface cards to talk to the Apple II and the PC.  Yes, it could be
interfaced to the Amiga.)

It is possible to kludge it, SoundScape can follow MIDI clock messages
received from it's MIDI input port, but this requires that a piece of
outboard gear such as certain drum machines, a dedicated sync computer
(such as the Roland SBX-80), or even another sequencer with an interface
capable of tape sync and MIDI output be used to generate the MIDI clock
messages to the Amiga.  This can cause other problems:  All of these
methods incur additional expense.  You can have problems merging MIDI
data coming out of your keyboard with the MIDI clock data that must be
added by this device.  If whatever you use as a synchronizer doesn't
support this, you either give up playing parts into the computer while
syncing to tape or you must buy an additional piece of outboard gear, a
MIDI merger (such as the one made by 360-Systems.)  (It would be possible
to generate a sync signal using the Amiga audio device.  I don't know
if you could read it back in realtime and sync to it with one of the
various Amiga sound digitizers or not.  Anybody try this?)

Now for the software.  Note that I am sold in general on machines like the
Star, Alto, Mac and Amiga that have a standardized user interface.  The
user interface for SoundScape follows the Amiga very closely.  You can
get around in SoundScape pretty intuitively, with a few problems.  The
patch panel interface is quite clever.  You use the mouse to connect the
modules to each other.  All of your setup can be stored to disk. 

One problem is that notes are grabbed from the keyboard for the topmost track
in the track list that can use them (specifies the same MIDI channel and has
the 'play through' mode selected and is playing), regardless of which tracks
are being used for recording.  It is really frustrating to play back a track
and find nothing recorded there because some other track grabbed the notes and
threw them away.  This happens to me a lot.  Of course any track
being recorded should have priority for getting the notes being played on the
keyboard!

When you allocate a new track and specify that you want it's input 
to come from MIDI IN, SoundScape by default will filter out MIDI data such
as that coming from the pitch and modulation wheels and aftertouch.
This is generally not what I want and I cannot set the defaults, so EVERY time
I create a track I have to click to say I want to create a track, click the
track input icon a few times to get the MIDI input module to be the input to
the track, then click another icon to get a list of binary selectors by which
I disable the filtering of all of the aforementioned data.  (I suppose I
could precreate an empty song consisting of empty tracks for all my different
instruments,  but that's a workaround, not a solution.)

Almost all drum machines and many sequencers allow you to create a song
by creating many patterns of an arbitrary length, usually one, two or
four measures and then assembling the song by specifying a list of the desired
patterns in the order in which they are to be played.  SoundScape works
something like this, but SoundScape has you pretend you are splicing film.
You click the patterns together and although the splices are still
there, SoundScape doesn't provide you with a handle to easily find and
manipulate them once they're spliced together.  A track as a list of patterns
is the metaphor I find most valid for this activity.

Also, their file requester doesn't scan the directory every time it is called,
for speed, I suppose.  Unfortunately, SoundScape will occasionally create
a file and then not be able to find it.  It's there, but you have to
jimmy the requester by changing directories to get SoundScape to see it.

There is also a bug with the punch in/punch out software (at least in the
old version, I haven't tried it in the new one).  Punch in and punch out
allow you to define a place in a song in which to switch a track to record
mode and a place to switch it out, great for fixing mistakes.  For example,
you bobbled one of the chord changes in "My Sharona" but your part is
otherwise perfect.  You want to punch in just before the bobble part and
punch out immediately afterwards so your don't lose any of your otherwise
fine take.  You want to start a few measures before the bobble so you'll
know where you are in the song and be ready to play in time.  In fact,
you should be able to play along with the tape for a while before the
punch in occurs so the transition to recording will be natural for you.
SoundScape can do all of this.  Unfortunately, nothing will be recorded during
the punch in interval unless you play the song from the beginning rather
than from a few measures before the punch in.

The latest release runs under the 1.2 workbench.  The first one didn't.
Most of the bugs seem to have been fixed.  The old version was quite
unstable (no mention of this in other reviews), probably due to bugs in
SoundScape and in the 1.1 WB.  It could be crashed by as little as closing
a big window and moving the mouse real fast while the other windows were
being refreshed.  (It uses simple refresh)  I have had problems with the
new version, though, like getting weird data recorded into a track that
causes the player to stop when it trys to play the funny data.  Hitting
play again causes everything to continue from where it left off.  Weird.

Documentation.  The documentation is a 5" X 7" manual, 112 pages in length.
It contains some examples of the most basic use of SoundScape (Amiga keyboard
for input, internal voices only) but none for setups including synthesizers
and none during the explanations of some of the major and complicated parts
of the software.  I found that it takes several readings to understand note
editing and song editing.  Ironically, there is a gushing credit to the
manual author in the acknowledgements.

In conclusion, SoundScape is a reasonably good amateur sequencer containing
some very clever innovations but having problems with the user interface,
bugs, poor documentation and an inability to directly synchronize to tape.


Why are the other reviews so glowing?  I can think of several possible reasons.
It takes a long time to dig into and thoroughly learn such a sophisticated
program, even if it the program has really good docs.  Most reviewers don't
have enought time to do this.  Also, the raves have appeared for the most
part in computer magazines.  Presumably, many of the reviews were written by
people more computer-oriented and less music-oriented who didn't have a lot of
experience with other sequencers to form a basis of comparison or had much time
to think about what they are looking for in a sequencer.  Also, I think
it is because there isn't a whole lot of software available for the Amiga,
period, so anything that works seems to draw raves.  (Remember Arctic Fox?)

Before you flame me for any of this, remember that I am an Amiga enthusiast.
-- 
uucp: {shell,rice,seismo}!soma!uhnix1!sugar!karl
bbs:  (713) 933-2440	voice: (713) 933-9134