@7Utils:

@5FM Synth:-)

FM Synth as its name suggests is a synth sound producer which err, 

produces synthesised sounds. Not a lot of people have heard of this 

program, which is a shame because it is very good. I don't really know

what use it would serve in this day and age of sound sampling etc but

it is neat and sounds good. What's more it has the capability to save

sounds either in its own voice format or as 8SVX. 

So what does it do then? Well, it makes a lot of funny noises for one

thing, some good, some as much fun as reading Amiga Frontier Issue 1 

(re: shite).

What happens is you choose a voice instrument and then fiddle   #7More>>>
@5
around with the pitch, then the wavetype and the algorithms and then 

select calculate. The Amiga will then calculate a synth sound from what 

you have specified and hey presto! A crappy sound. Best to stick to the

voices provided. I must admit though, the program is great fun to use,

very easy to get the hang of and it produces some great results.

The sound quality is brilliant, it's about the closest you will get

to a proper sampled sound i.e the piano effect, Chinese warble etc.

Due to the fact that I sample all my own instruments and speech myself

I don't really need a synth sound creator, but having used FM Synth

again after about a year of it being buried somewhere on my Hard Drive

I will seriously reconsider my choice, i.e I'll probably export some

synth 8SVX sounds over to Med or something like that and use them #7More>>>
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in my mods.

Anyway, FM Synth has loads of neat little features like a keyboard at

the bottom of the screen to help you find that illusive note and

the little beep which sounds after you've calculated your synth.

I have only one gripe with this program, you normally have to wait

about 10 seconds for the Amigas 020 to calculate the sound. This gets

tedious when you are loading in several voices just to hear what they 

sound like, but that isn't really what I'm getting at, it's the fact that

the bugger won't work with an 030, which means I still have to wait.

Of course, this is only very very minor and isn't really the programs

fault, it's just the fact that I had to winge about something and

this was the best I could come up with.                 #7More>>>
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Sorry critics, but FM Synth is a great program and I like it.

Overall 92%

@5
Snoopdos:-)

This is potentially a very useful program, it all depends upon what

you use your Amiga for. For instance if there is a problem with

a script I've made for Frontier and I can suss it out quickly, then

double click on ye old Snoopdos, then run the script again and Snoopy

will tell me exactly what the Amiga is doing and trying to do, therefore
@5
giving me a much better idea of what's going wrong.

Snoopdos is just an IconX window which continually scrolls down the

page whenever the Amiga is working on something.

It lists the program running, the operation i.e open, close and #7More>>>

the directories which your Amiga is running through, for example if you

load something like Multiview, then because this program accesses

the req.library, snoopdos will inform you that dos is using the

req.library from libs/, this is a VERY useful feature, but then again if 

you only use your Amiga for games, or the odd spot of word-processing 

and reading A.F of course, then Snoopdos will be of no use to you.

Anyway, S.D (no not Scooby Doo) is a very simple program both in looks

and in operation, but it can save a lot of time and it doesn't

need to look good. Great program, once again, two in a row!

Overall 90%:- Rename it Snoopy Island and I'll give it 96%. :-)


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@5
AssignZ:-(                                                      
@5

Another utility which helps users along a bit, this time it is a 

utility which helps you assign stuff, especially useful to games players

who don't know how to assign things to their hard-drive, assuming you

have one that is.

It is very simple to use, you just select what you want to be assigned,

make sure that you have the program that needs assigning on your 

hard-drive and then just click on O.K. Easy heh? 

Not half as easy as the review was.

Overall: 88%, useful, but not that useful, more of a time saver.