AM/FM: Amiga Musicians' Freeware Magazine 1/AM-FM 1.adf/text/MED.txt.pp/MED.txt

Text File | 1991-10-03 | 15KB | 255 lines

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                 MED v3.10 - A WALKTHROUGH AND SOME OPINIONS

       Preface:MED (Music EDitor) is Public Domain by Teijo Kinnunen.

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It's  all  in  the  name, they say - MED is simply short for Music EDitor, so
there  should  be  no  doubt as to what kind of program it is.  MED is one of
those  programs  that  have  been out there for a long time, yet it has never
been  quite  powerful  enough  to take on the competition with the many other
trackers around, but it has always had it's interesting features, making it a
bit unique.  However, with the recent release of version 3.00 and 3.10, I can
safely say that it is just as powerful as any other music editor out there.

Just to keep you reading, here's a quick breakdown of what MED v3.10 can do:

*    You can have 4 different kinds of instruments: Samples, MIDI, Synthetic
     instruments and Hybrid instruments - all playing together.

*    Each pattern can have 4, 8, 12 or 16 tracks. Only 4 of them can be used
     for Amiga sound, the other 12 are for MIDI. (There is also a version
     called OctaMED, with 8 channels of Amiga sound).

*    There is a simple, yet very powerful "programming language" for creating
     synthetic sounds, allowing you to generate very complex synthesis.

*    MED is 100% multitasking, it doesn't stop your computer from doing other
     things, like for example Noisetracker.

When  I  first  saw  MED  about  a  year  ago,  I was thrilled about the MIDI
capabilities.  I could actually load up my Noisetracker modules, replace some
of  the instruments with MIDI instruments, and even add more MIDI instruments
to  the  already existing 4 Amiga channels.  I played around with the program
for  a  few  days, but unfortunately it was still lacking some very important
features  and  effects  etc,  so  I soon went back to using Noisetracker, and
forgot all about MED.

About  a  year  went  by, then suddenly, a couple of months ago, it showed up
again.  I loaded up the new version and had a look - at first sight it looked
like  the  old  MED  I'd been using earlier, but wait..  there was much more!
Author  Teijo  Kinnunen had evidently worked A LOT on the program, and I soon
realised  that  I was dealing with a powerful, finally grown-up program here.
MED  was  now able to load and play Noisetracker modules perfectly, which was
the  major  problem  with  the  earlier versions.  In addition there were the
options  for MIDI and synthetic instruments - I figured I had to try out this
program  for a while and see what it was worth.  After a couple of days I had
found a few weaknesses and minor bugs - I wrote a letter to the author, Teijo
Kinnunen,  telling  him  about the problems.  Teijo showed off with some real
user-service,  within  about a week he had corrected the bugs, added a couple
of  small  goodies,  improved  the general layout of the program, and sent me
version 3.10 before I even had expected to hear from him at all.  Great work,
Teijo!

Let's  have  a  look  at  the  different  sections  in  MED.   First off, the
instruments, which can be either samples, synthesis, hybrids or MIDI.

Samples:

I  take it you already know about samples and how they work, so I'm not going
to  describe  that part, but I can mention that there is a sample editor much
like  the one in Audiomaster, with cut/paste, up/downsample and all the usual
functions.   In  v3.10,  there  is  also  the  "filter" function adapted from
ProTracker.   This  function  is  useful  for getting rid of "hiss" from bass
samples,  using  it  on samples with a lot of treble can seriously damage the
sample  quality,  so  it  is recommended for bass samples only.  You can also
sample your sounds directly into MED - no need to use Audiomaster.  One thing
missing  though,  is the "boost" function, which is the opposite of "filter".
It  gives  a  boost to the peaks of the sample, actually distorts it a little
bit,  giving  the  impression of more treble in the sample.  Great for hihats
and snares.  Let's hope this function will show up in the next version.

Synthetic sounds:

This  is  probably  the most interesting part of MED.  The author has come up
with  a  new  way  of creating synthesis which is far more powerful than I've
seen  in  any other music editor.  Each synthetic instrument can have as many
different  waveforms  as  you want, and there is a very neat function letting
you  "transform"  one  waveform  into  another  through a number of different
waves, so that say a triangle wave can bit by bit be transformed into a sine,
with  the  program  making  up all the steps in between, making a nice smooth
transformation.   Neat!   These  waveforms  can be put together into complete
instruments  with  the  synthetics  "programming  language"  -  a sequence of
commands  which  lets  you play the waveforms in any order you might want to,
control   the  volume,  vibrato,  arpeggio,  pitch  sliding  and  many  other
functions.  This programming language takes a bit of time to get the hang of,
but  when  you get familiar with it, it's a sheer pleasure using, and you can
create  synthetic  sounds  of  a much more complex nature than with any other
editor I've seen.  I was experimenting with it for a while, and ended up with
a  synthetic  sound  that played for about 2 minutes before repeating itself,
and I still hadn't pushed the synthesizer to it's limits.  Not by far.

Hybrid instruments:

These  are  instruments  that are really samples, but you can run the samples
through  the synthesizer programming language and manipulate them in the same
way  that  you  do with a synthetic instrument.  This is something completely
new,  and  although I must admit I haven't really used any hybrid instruments
yet,  it  certainly  opens up for great possiblities.  You can take a sampled
string-sound,  run  it through the synthesizer to control the attack, sustain
and  decay, add vibrato and/or arpeggio and generally do everything you would
do with a synthesized instrument.

MIDI instruments:

Although  the  MIDI  functions  in MED are about as good as they can get in a
"tracker-like"  program, I still wouldn't use MED for songs with only MIDI, I
would of course use a sequencer like Music-X, because it is far more powerful
for  MIDI  use.  But the MIDI functions in MED are great to play around with,
the  most interesting use of them are probably that of loading your favourite
Noisetracker  modules  into  MED, replacing some of the instruments with MIDI
instruments, and see how good you can make it sound.  You can kill the chord-
samples  in the song, expand the patterns to 8 tracks, and put on chords from
a  synthesizer  in  the extra tracks for a far better sound quality.  You can
replace  the  lead instrument with the one you have on your synthesizer, then
the  bass,  and  maybe also the drums, if you have a drum computer.  But as I
said, if I was thinking of composing a song using synthesizers, I wouldn't be
using MED, I'd go for a professional MIDI sequencer.

The Editor

The Editor in MED is probably it's major problem.  Although it is really just
as  good as the one in say Noisetracker, it differs too much from the editors
we're  used  to.   The  first  100 hours of using MED, there's going to be an
awful  lot  of swearing because you pressed the wrong key, at least if you're
used  to  using  Noisetracker  or ProTracker.  And who isn't?  In my opinion,
Kinnunen should have taken this into consideration and made the editor itself
more  like  the  one in Noisetracker, which afterall is the most familiar and
most  used  tracker  around.   But  once these "Darn, I pressed the wrong key
again"  problems  are  overcome,  the  editor  isn't  bad.  But then again, I
wouldn't  say  it's  particularly  good  either.  There are a few nice things
worth noticing, though.  Each of the patterns can be of any length from 1-128
steps, there is no longer any need to "break" the pattern at position 47 when
using  6/8  beat,  you  simply  make the pattern 48 steps long.  However, the
"break"  command  still works, for those who just won't give it up.  There is
also  a very powerful Transpose page, which lets you transpose any instrument
or all instruments half-notes or octaves, affecting just one track, the whole
pattern,  or  even the whole song.  The "whole song" function is very nice if
you  have  made  a  lot  of  patterns with one instrument, then you decide to
replace that instrument.  The editor also has a lot of other functions, but I
can't  go  on describing them all here, it would fill a disk!  I think I have
covered the most important ones.

The Effects

The  effects  are  mostly the same as those in Noisetracker, although some of
them  have  changed their name.  F has changed to 9, A has changed to D etc -
this  may seem strange at first, but you get used to it within a few minutes.
If you load a Noisetracker module into MED, these commands will automatically
be translated into their respective MED equals, and to my utter surprise, MED
v3.10  can  load  and  play  any Noisetracker module 100% perfectly.  Not yet
implemented  are most of the effect functions offered in ProTracker, which is
a  shame  really,  because  once you get used to the luxury of the ProTracker
effects,  it's  not  easy  letting them go.  A couple of them are implemented
though,  those  are the note-delay and the retrig note functions.  But if you
have  been  using Noisetracker, there is nothing you can't do it MED that you
could do in Noisetracker.

Other things...

There  is  a  "MED-paths"  file  which is almost the same as the PLST for the
other  trackers.   But the MED-pahts screen is based more on different disks,
and  it doesn't mix all the instruments in your entire collection together in
one  big  list.   This has both positive and negative sides, but if I had the
choice,  I  think  I would go for the good old PLST.  Maybe just because I've
used  it  for  years, and it's hard to get rid of a habit.  Anyway, synthetic
and  hybrid  instruments  can also be loaded from this "presetlist" just like
the samples.

On  the  setup-screen you can change the colours and whether you want decimal
or hexadecimal values in the patterns.  For us old Noise/ProTracker slaves, I
guess  hex  is  the  most  comfortable, but for someone starting from scratch
today,  I'm  sure they will be delighted not having to think in hex.  There's
also  a  little  joke  in  the shape of your mouse pointer, which is really a
jumping little fella - you can choose whether he jumps on specific samples or
on  every 8th beat.  Funny for about 30 seconds, but this doesn't belong in a
program of MED's caliber if it wants to be taken seriously.  Let's get rid of
him, Teijo.

The  playroutine  for  MED  is  made  to  work  correctly  with  the Devpac 2
assembler,  but  with  a  few  minor  adjustments  it  will work just fine on
Masterseka  or  AsmOne  as  well.   The  playroutine  handles  all  kinds  of
instruments,  even  MIDI, but many of the functions can be turned off to save
CPU  time.   If  for example there are no MIDI instruments in your song, just
turn off the MIDI switch in the playroutine, and the replayer won't check for
MIDI,  thus  you  have  gained  a  lot  of  speed.  The same can be done with
synthetics, samples, hybrids and also other functions can be turned off.  The
default timing method is the CIA timer, which lets you have your speed in BPM
(Beats  Per  Minute) instead of Vertical-blankings like in Noisetracker.  But
if you for some reason insist on still using V-blanking, there's a switch for
that too.

Conclusion

MED  has  grown  into  a very powerful program, whos only real competition is
ProTracker.  It has by far passed Noisetracker in possibilities, and the only
reason  I  can  think  of  for sticking to Noisetracker now, is that you have
grown  so  attached  to  it  that you refuse to change, even though there are
other,  much better editors available.  But ProTracker is still stronger than
MED in some aspects.  The editing is faster and easier, there are more effect
commands.  But as we all know, ProTracker offers sampled instruments only, so
if  you want to use synthetics, you would be a fool to use anything else than
MED.   It simply has no competition in this field.  Personally I use both MED
and  ProTracker  now, it's nice with some variation.  For some reason I get a
different  feeling  working  with  MED, and it brings out different ideas and
different  music.   MED 3.10 is too good a program to be ignored, you have to
at  least  try  it  out  for a few hours and see if you like it.  You will be
thrilled about the synthesizer part, and if you're like me, the musical ideas
will  be  plenty  when  you  get to work with something a bit different.  New
sounds, new effects, they always give room for lots of creativity.

What I would like to see in the next version:

- Constant display of the actual size of the module
- Boost sample function
- Some more ProTracker commands supported
- 8 tracks on the screen when using 8 or more tracks
- Use of requestor.library requestor instead of the existing file requestor

How to get MED

MED  v3.10  is  available  directly  from the author, Teijo Kinnunen, at this
address:

                                Teijo Kinnunen
                                  Oksantie 19
                              SF-86300  OULAINEN
                                    FINLAND

Although MED is Public Domain and you don't have to pay anything for it, keep
in mind that Teijo has used many months and even years to create this program
for  us  all  to  enjoy,  so  be  nice  and send him a little something - not
necessarily  money,  how  about  a couple of disks with some of your modules?
Some  new  demos?   Chocolate?   Some  nice  instrument  disks?   Peanuts?  A
magazine?   It's  up to you to show that we musicians appreciate that someone
is working for us.

The  8-channel  version, OctaMED, is available from the Public Domain company
called  AmigaNuts,  and  if you buy it from them, a little share of the money
will be given to Teijo.  The address is:

                               AMIGANUTS UNITED
                             169, Dale Valley Road
                                  Hollybrook
                                  Southampton
                                    SO1 6QX
                                    ENGLAND
                               Phone [phone]

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