Labels:text | screenshot | font OCR: DSS ((< GREAT VALLEY PRODUCTS DSS8+ >)) Digital Sound Studio Reviewed and written especially for AM/FM by Andre Meyer GUP's latest production is the DSS8+ stereo sampler for the Amiga. It comes as a hardware device, with two disks including a sampling- program and some samples, as well as a detailed manual. THE HARDWARE (AM/FM-rating: 9 1/2 points) The hardware is a device, which must be connected to the parallel port of the Amiga. It features two RCA plugs as well as a mini plug for connecting a mic, and has a nice transparent plastic casing so you can see all the chips. One thing I did not like very much was that the device must be connected directly on the port, i.e. there is no extension cable from the plug to the sampler to place the sampler where you want (several if samplers feature this though), so sampiers you are an owner of an A500 (plus), A600 or A1200 and have your monitor directly behind it (because of lack of space on your table, for example), it is difficult, or say, impossible to get the sampler connected, as it is pretty long. Anyway, it was no problem for me as an owner of a so- called "switch-box", which switches between to devices needing to be connected to the parallel port ample (e.g. printer and sampler). Also owners of an A2000, A3000 and A4000 won't have any problems. Anyway, if you have enough place on your table, or buy an extansion cable which should be available at electronic shops, this should not be a problem at all. Okay, let's come to the technical side of the sampler. I have tried it out with a lot of different sounds, like pianos, basses, drums, bells, analog sweeps, effects and a lot more... and I must say that the sound quality is very very good, probably even the best from an Amiga 8-bit sampler ever. The low as well as the high frequencies over very good, deep powerful basses as well as high strings are sampled in a great quality, even at lower sampling-frequencies. I just had some very low noise on a piano, which you only hear if the sample would be played alone. But 1st) you would never play only a piano sample and 2nd.) you know it has always been a bit more difficult to sample a piano. come I have tried the device with several different programs, such as Audition IV, Audiomaster III, even ProTracker as well as the original DSS8+ program itself, but I must admit that the DSS8+ prog was defintely the best for this sampler. With ProTracker the device did not work at all (because of only one configuration of ProTracker), and Audiomaster III (unfortunately Audiomaster IV was not available for me at the time of this review) is a good program indeed, but there were far too less high-frequencies in the sample. I already thought I had switched on the filter, but a look at the LED of my computer told me I was wrong. Well, I guess it was not the program' fault, but a prog which does not feature the exact configuartion of your sampler can usually not sample as good as the original, especially for it designed one. Now you might ask yourself if the DSS8+ is as comfortable as your beloved Audiomaster. I will tell you in the following lines. And so we are no reaching the next headline: www. THE SOFTWARE (AM/FM-rating: 10 points) me The software is loaded quickly and can be runned in the background (multi-tasking!!!), so if you want to sample or edit only a sample and do not have a hard-disk, you can do it in no minute. Once the program is loaded, an own screen opens and a graphic with a message appears: "GUP Digital Sound Studio Welcome to DSS" button and you get some information about processor, kickstart etc. Another click on the mouse-button and a menu with numbers counted from 1 to 31 appears. Each numbers belongs to a sample (e.g. like in ProTracker or OctaMed). In my opinion this A click on the mouse- your system, such as feature is very useful, as you can sample/edit several sounds at the same time, provided that you have enough memory. are not not and If you Have you chosen a number and click on the Sampler-gadget, you get into the sample-menu. Here you can choose the sampling-frequency, the input gain, if you want to sample in stereo, mono (btw, when sampling in mono the stereo signals mixed automatically, so an adapter is essential anymore) or in a special HIFI-mode for better quality, what kind of monitor you wou would like (spectral analyisis, oscilloscope) alla if you prefer to use a programmable filte when sampling. If you have made all decisions, you can either click on the monitor- (to see if the signal comes through correctly) or at the sampling-option. Sampling is done easily. Just click on the left mouse-button. The monitor appears to get sure if everything has been done correctly. Click again and the screen becomes black, which indicates the computer is sampling. You can now stop the sampling by another click on the mouse-button or wait till all the memory is full. The prog stops then automatically. II a lower frequency. When Once you have sampled the sound, you can click on the Editor-gadget to get into the editor. Here you can edit the sound by using the usual commands like copy, paste, cut, zoom in/out, set loops etc., as well as other special commands like reverse, fade in/out, mix two samples Ur or add and echo to the sample (here you can even choose the speed, time and amount of the echos). You have also the possibilty to resample sound to a sou Also worth to mention is that you can choose betu between three kinds of playing a sample: the whole sample, only the displayed part or a selected range. When selecting the two last mentioned options there is even a line that shows which part of the sample is just being played. I think this feature is nothing special actually, but it is a very nice feature for easier editing and not every sampling-software offers this though. Other gadgets and information you can see on the Editor-screen are choose the volume and the channel where to play the sample (none, left, right or both), a status-line, and, if wished, a little "Mini-Scope", which indicates incoming signals. One important thing line which shows you what part of the sample is just played (e.g. like in Audiomaster). I suppose this feature is not for everybody of an importance, but for me it is, as it is by far easier FOR COO to edit samples. third and last part of the program is the "Tracker". It is very similar to ProTracker, and is compatible to all Sound Tracker, Noise Tracker, ProTracker and SoundFX modules. A block consists of 64 steps here, too. The only confusing thing is that the steps are counted from 1 to 64, and not like in ProTracker from 0 to 63. So measures do not start at 0, 16, 32 and 48, but at 1, 17, 33 and 49, and I think this is also mathematical not correct, cause 16 into 32 makes 2, but 17 into 33 makes definetely not missed was a WISSE were to 101 MANUAL (9 1/2 points) The manual is surely over 200 pages long (I have not counted them, as there are no page numbers. The manual has been divided into chapters) and very detailed. To each option, each screen or whatsoever, there is a little graphic printed. For beginners in sampling technology there is also a part in which they explain what sound, frequence, amplitude etc. are. but how to One thing I just cannot understand is that GVP explains how easily you can load the sampling-program, but all their instructions do not work. They write you just have to insert the disk and wait... load if there is no boot-block on the disk?!? They write how easily it can be loaded from the Workbench. "...just click on DSS8-icon...", they write. his own fonts, but you the Well, I have done it, but as the prog have booted from the Workbench-disk, it needs wants you to insert it. Even for a quite experienced Amiga-user like me it took nearly 10 minutes to get the program worked by finding out which files are necessary and copying all those ones onto one disk. CONCLUSION (but only) a few things in the Well, defintely there are still software as well in the manual which should be improved/removed, but but for sure GUP's DSS8+ is the most quality Amiga-8-bit sampler available at the moment. Of course ú70 are not very cheap for an 8-bit sampler, if you do not require 16-bit sampler like Clarity 16, the Maestro or the much more expensive Sunrise sound-cards, I can highly recommend the DSS8+ to you. >Total AM/FM-rating: 9 1/2 points < If you want to purchase the GUP DSS8+, you can either order from the Great Britain distributor Silica Systems or look out for a division in your country. Silica Systems 1-4 The Mews Hatherley Road Sidcup Kent DA14 4DX Great Britain Tel. +44 81 309 1111 FAX +44 81 308 0608 AM/FM
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