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- Item 6075890 31-Oct-93 19:21PST
-
- From: UG0099 New York MUG,UG
-
- To: UG$ User Groups
- LMUG London Macintosh User Group,GB,IMU
- MOSCOW.UNIV Moscow State University,AUC,IHE
-
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Sub: $MusicShop Review$
-
- Review for MUSICSHOP v1.0, by Opcode Systems
- by Hal Feldman
-
- About six weeks ago I dove into music and MIDI head first. Armed with a
- new keyboard and a Mac, I was determined to erase my traumatic memories of
- childhood piano lessons. Back then, my fingers failed me, as did my patience,
- and I quit piano because the frustration level was too high. But now I wanted
- to try again...with a new high-tech approach. Enter MIDI, a musical language
- that allows electronic instruments to talk to each other. With MIDI every
- aspect and nuance of a performance is captured as digital information. This
- information can then be stored or sent to other instruments, allowing musicians
- to play many instruments at once. Couple this powerful language with a
- computer and some sequencing software that allows you to alter that musical
- data, and MIDI gains the ability to correct the mistakes made during a
- performance. This is what I needed...a way to “play” what my ear heard without
- my fingers getting in the way.
- Now enter Musicshop by Opcode Systems, Inc. Out of the box this sequencer
- product was very friendly. The installation/tutorial manual explained in
- detail how to set everything up and supplied plenty of helpful diagrams. The
- tutorial wasted no time in letting me enter data and hear just what Musicshop
- was capable of. It even supplied a simple tutorial song if I didn’t want to
- try entering notes from my keyboard right off the bat. Everything flowed in a
- very organized and educational manner. Within 30 minutes I had a smile
- plastered on my face, music playing from my keyboard, and had a good overview
- of what wonderful things MIDI could do for me.
- Once I put down the “get-up-and-running-but-don’t-learn-too-much-too-fast”
- tutorial manual, the reference manual was next. This manual outlined all of
- Musicshop’s editing features in detail. Although organized and well laid-out,
- it was not nearly as well written as the tutorial manual. Several features of
- the program were explained in a confusing manner and in one case, a very
- important detail was missing. In particular, in order to record which voice
- (instrument sound) you wish the sequencer to playback your song in, you must
- place a program change at the beginning of your sequence file. This was
- completely omitted from the manual. Thus, every time I tried to load and
- playback my first recorded song, the wrong instruments would play on the
- keyboard. In addition, their explanation of how to personalize the program and
- note names to a specific keyboard was lacking not only clarity, but also
- neglected to point out a REASON to personalize note names. These, and other
- minor flaws in the manual, made further learning and experimentation somewhat
- frustrating. A musical novice needs far more detail and hand-holding than this
- manual provides. However, I must admit that I was not left without product
- support. Where the manual failed, the phone support succeeded. When I called
- the 6-day-a-week customer support line, they were very pleasant and immediately
- cleared up the questions that I had. Too bad the reference manual wasn’t
- written by the tech support staff! An interesting fact about the missing
- “setting up a voice change” documentation that I explained above is that the
- instructions are INCLUDED in the manual of Opcode’s more expensive Vision
- sequencing software. Not only that, but in that manual it is separated from
- the rest of the text by a bold “Important” headline and italicized lettering.
- I don’t think Opcode intentionally left it out of the Musicshop manuals, but
- maybe they should consider rewriting the manuals for this otherwise excellent
- product.
- Once past the maunals, Musicshop does nothing but shine. Its on-screen
- appearance is top notch, packing hoards of tools and indicators into a small,
- organized interface. Every icon and picture is designed well, adding to the
- product’s intuitive feel. One particularly nice feature is an icon they added
- to the main editing window. It reveals a pull-down menu that allows quick
- access to the mixer, track setup, and arrangement windows. All of Musicshop’s
- tools follow the Macintosh GUI (graphical user interface), accomplishing the
- difficult taks of making an incredibly powerful piece of software both
- non-threatening and easy to use.
- Musicshop is also more than “just a sequencer.” It also allow you to
- directly enter musical notes in both standard staff view or in the sequencer’s
- timeline view. In addition, Musicshop automaticaly interprets sequences and
- assigns standard notation to “live” performances, making it a pseudo-notation
- program as well. While it accomplishes notation, the ability to edit the
- notation is scarce, so don’t expect it to replace a music notation program. It
- is, however, good enough for educational purposes and gives you a general sense
- of what your printed music would look like.
- Overall, Musicshop is a well-rounded sequencer program that will make any
- beginner or intermediate user very happy. Its editing capabilities are not
- ultra-extensive, but supply more than enough ability to all but the
- professional musician (which is where Opcode’s Vision and StudioVision software
- are positioned.) Musicshop is easy to run and is quite nimble, even with large
- and complex sequence files. The only drawback is the sketchy reference manual
- which should have more details. Musicshop's notation feature makes it an
- excellent teaching aid and allows users to enter sheet music as well (a feature
- lacking from other sequencers.) I highly recommend this program to anyone
- looking for their first sequencing software package. With its myriad of
- features, it may well be the last one you'll ever need.
-
- ••••••••••••
-
- If you enjoyed this article, please drop a note to:
- Hal Feldman
- 10 West 66th Street, Apt. 9J
- New York, NY 10023
-
- or message him at the following electronic mailboxes:
- Prodigy: MDCS79A
- AOL: HalF
- Internet: half@aol.com
- OneNet at node Hal Feldman,NYMUG
-
-