************ REVIEW OF GEORGE VOKALEK'S SOUND DIGITIZER *********
      ***** AND A LITTLE INFO ABOUT AUDIOMASTER BY GRAEME WHITTLE *****

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    Ed: Graeme and Lai run ARTSCAPE STUDIOS, specialising in Graphics 
    and Animation. You'll find examples of their work in MD's PD library
    and they will take on commissioned work and consultation in general.
    Contact them on (02) 9771829. (And Graeme knows more than he lets on
    in this review!)

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    Okay so the editor of this disk magazine really knows how to put a guy
    on the spot, asking me, a complete novice when it comes to sound, to
    do a product review of George Vokalek's sound digitizer. Just because
    I borrowed the thing about two months ago  and failed to return it!
    Actually I had borrowed two sound digitizers at the time mainly
    because I was unsure about the rather homemade appearance of George's
    device. Was I ever wrong.

        The reason I had to have a sound digitizer or two was because I
    was, at the time commissioned to do a rather long computer display for
    the Mater Hospital in Brisbane. This display had to have SOUND (gulp).

        In any case when I finally got to work with a copy of Peter Norman
    and Elizabeth Vanture's excellent Audiomaster software I noticed that
    there was a fundamental difference between my two digitizers. The
    difference was that George's plugged into the parallel port and the
    other nameless variety [ED: Nameless is MIMETICS] plugged into
    mouseport2.  Okay so big deal, no problem try them both, Ha! It proved
    to be impossible to plug the nameless variety into the mouseport of  my
    Amiga 1000 without disconnecting my ram expansion and thus
    disconnecting my hard disk drive.
        Computers! Who needs them at times like that, and, let's face it,
    aren't those times more frequent than we admit?  My next step was to
    attempt to plug the device into the Amiga 500 but if any of you have
    tried to swap hardware devices between the two machines you will
    already know that I needn't have bothered,  mainly because  all the
    500's ports are recessed in a way which must have the designers of
    this otherwise excellent machine, killing themselves with laughter.

        Allright, here I was and It looked like I might just have to
    use George Vokalek's homemade job instead of the million dollar
    American brand X device. I powered down my 1000, unplugged the
    graphics digitizer from the parallel port and plugged in this really
    clunky looking thing (actually it probably looks a whole lot better
    by now, this was a test model), [ED. NOTE: it does look a lot better]
    powered back up. I then loaded Audiomaster, accessed the sampler and
    was away.

        Things started from that moment to take on a new complexion:
    among the things I had to digitize were voice, television
    advertisements, pre-recorded music and synthetic sound effects. At
    all times George's digitizer worked flawlessly as did the Audiomaster
    software. In spite of the fact that there are a number of adjustments
    on the back of this digitizer, esoteric things called right gain, and
    left offset I didn't have to use them, according to the Audiomaster
    manual everything was just fine. I did discover the golden rule of
    sound digitizing though, and that is the larger the sample the better
    the quality. You can  get away with sparse samples on sounds which  are
    not particularly dense, such as harp sounds. For sounds like the voice
    the sample rate should be much higher though, a low sample rate on
    these sounds makes the quality very tinny.

        So that's about it, I can't give you any technical data on
    this product as I don't have it, if you are interested in contacting
    George his telephone number is (08) 294 1283 and if you are interested
    in Audiomaster, while it has been developed in Australia it is
    published and distributed by Aegis. Also the true value of these
    products is apparent when you consider that before using them I had
    no previous experience with computer sound. But now after a little
    experience I have some confidence in this field.

    DETAILS: (See Oz_Products in this issue)
    The kit includes the Double sided plated-through-hole PCB, and
    all of the components you need to build it up. (No case is included).
    Compatible with A1000, A500, A2000 (you must specify which if buying
    the kit)

    Available as
    1) Bare PCB + instructions  $30 each   (for 5 or more, $25 each)
    2) kit including PCB, instructions, plus all components required,
       postage                  $60
    3) 3.5" disk with PD PerfectSound and PD AudioMaster demo programs
       for use with the digitiser. $5 (postage included).
    All enquiries to:

        George Vokalek
        GPO BOX 121
        Adelaide 5001
        South Australia.

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