DYNAMIC STUDIO By Paul Nash Although I immediately found the drum machine easy to use, quickly producing exciting results with the many good sounds (instrument samples as well as drums and percusion) and creative features such as separate accent volume and accent tuning, and was eager to record and edit a bass track with the sequencer and sequence note editor trying some of the features from the sequencer menus, as I went on I became aware I would need to overcome serious problems with my freshly purchased music package for the Amiga, Dynamic Studio, before I was going to get any joy out of the $390 I handed over for it. Dynamic Studio, despite my initial problems with it, is a full featured Midi sequencer package with an equaly well equipped drum machine that makes use of the Amiga's own sound ports. It comes from New Wave Software and grew out of the American company's earlier product Dynamic Drums which was a drum machine only, with some MIDI capabilities. Dynamic Studio has been released into a market more than just a little thin on professional music packages for the Amiga. For this reason a lot of attention may be directed at a package like this. I hope that what follows will help you decide whether Dynamic Studio really has what it takes. The program has three distinct parts, the Sequencer (sequence recorder-player), Sequence Note Editor and Drum Machine. Each part is fairly sophisticated and needs to be more or less understood to operate it. However my first attempts at each part proved successful (though I couldn't save any until I figured out how to set up a data disk). I've never used a real-time sequencer before but I have used step type sequencers such as Deluxe Music Construction Set and have had a lot of experience with drum machines. Basiclly if you can use a a cassette recorder you'll get the hang of a real time sequencer. The whole idea of the program is to have the drum machine accompanying you while you're recording the sequencer tracks. This eliminates the need for an external drum machine plus saves on the sequencer tracks needed for that machine. In fact this idea works quite well and is a useful composition tool. If you want to record your finished pieces on tape you might like to switch out the Amiga's low pass filter to improve the frequency responce of the sound ports. For owners of the A500 and the A2000 it's only a matter of using the filter toggle in the Studio menu, but for those of us who own A1000s a hardware adjustment is required to allow the filter toggle to opperate (see Megadisc 7 for an article on doing this, as well as an article on MIDI). The Sequencer in this package operates in the standard way for the more serious ones, 16 tracks, 4 sections to each track, a total of 64 sequences with a resolution of 1/192 of a note, user definable time signature for each track plus a range of track manipulation functions as well. Such things with Dynamic Studio include Quantise, Time shift, Controller Scaling, Track Merge, Echo and Rechannelling. Other more creative features include Randomizing, Reverse and Scramble. All this means that you have enormous creative and editing power on up to 16 synthesizer tracks, whether they be different voices on a few multi- timbral machines (plays different voices at the same time) or 16 seperate midi-controlled insruments. This is on top of sounds from the drum machine which uses the Amiga's own sound ports. Of the track features Quantize is extremely useful. Using this feature means you can quickly record a sequence and, so long as the notes are closer to the correct beat than the next or previous beat, using Quantize will shift all the notes to precisely on the beat. With the sequence a little tidier it's time to try some of the other effects. I tried Time Shift and was impressed with the difference it made. Time Shift will move the whole selected sequence forward or backward in timing by a defined amount (in fractions of a note). This can dramatically change the feel of a part and is a technique often used in recording studios by re-recording a tape track through a delay unit to another track (must be done with tape backwards to move a track forward in timing!!). But here all we have to do is designate a time (in + or - fractions of a note) and it's all done for us, no mess, no fuss. There's a lot more here to play around with and a little experimenting will realise the full power of the sequencer screen. The Note Editor gives you the power to change any aspect of a recorded sequence or to enter a sequence from scratch. (However it's no small job to determine and enter every aspect of a midi sequence, you're better off recording the basic track in real time and changing things later). The beauty of software-based note editors is that you can actually see the whole sequence displayed on screen at once and edit notes visually. Dymanic Studio displays the sequence in a way similar to a piano roll, with bars or measures running horizontally and notes shown as light or dark coloured bands (leangth depending on duration) corresponding to keys on a piano keyboard. A piano keyboard is shown at the top of the window to compare notes with as they appear. When you play the sequence from the note editor, you can see the sequence as it's being played and an indicator shows where you're up to in the sequence. This is useful in a number of ways e.g. finding a bad note. Once a note of a sequence is targeted for editing you can change any or all of the five parameters constituting a midi event i.e. Note (on piano keyboard e.g. C#5), Start, Velocity, End and Aftertouch. This can all seem a bit much at first, but a little practice can go a long way with this one. Dynamic Studio's manual places the Drum Machine first in its order of explanations and because of the likelihood of it producing instant results (i.e. had its own demo song and sounds,over 200 sounds but, alas, only one demo) it's the part that I tackled first also. And produce instant results it did. Only, it was then that I discovered that there were serious problems with the way I had set up my data disk (even though I had followed the instructions for doing so to the letter) and in the way I designated the data volume or drive (the explanation of this was scarcely touched on by the manual). However, these "minor" hitches sorted out, I went on to try to get a better understanding of this section of the program. The drum machine screen is packed with gadgets and sliders, a bit intimidating at first even if you're used to drum machines. But because of the nature of sliders, for instance, changing them and then listening to the results is a very effective way of getting the drum kit to sound the way you want it to, plus the many sounds on the main program disk and those of the extra data disk make up an impressive library. A complete drum song is built up by creating different patterns, then arranging the patterns in any order of your choice. Patterns are created in what's termed as Record-Mode, which starts the metronome and records whatever drums are struck on the Numeric Key Pad (each numeric key sounds an assigned drum). You can also enter drum notes by clicking a particular drum's note line in the Drum Pattern Window with the mouse. Accents can also be added and you can set the level of the accent at any volume, you can even set the tune of the accent differently to the unaccented drum. Drum machines, however, can sound mechanical and to overcome this Dynamic Studio has what's called Randomizing. If Randomise is on, then drum beats are played at slightly different volumes (can also be set to give different tuning levels) thus adding a more human feel to the rhythm. There are a few tricks with the drum machine, particularly with saving and playing patterns, so check what's been saved and don't be surprised if your song doesn't play as expected the first time 'round. I found Dynamic Studio a useful mutli-track sequencer package and can see myself getting a lot more out of it as I continue to use it, though I was a little disappointed with the problems I had at first, considering the price I paid for it ($389.00). The publishers recommend 1 Meg memory but it works very well on a 512k machine (provided you boot it up correctly). In the short time I've been using it I've compilled a list, by no means short, on tricks and quirks of Dynamic Studio. They may constitute an article in themselves or be appended to this one. If you have the program or intend buying it, these will be very helpful and save you a lot of trouble, pain and loss of data. DYNAMIC STUDIO by NEW WAVE SOFTWARE PRICE: $389 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX END OF DYNAMIC_STUDIO XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX