home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Amoszine 9
/
Amoszine 9 (Disk 1 of 3).adf
/
AMOSZINE
/
ARTS
/
MR_EME_Review.asc
/
MR_EME_Review.asc
Wrap
Text File
|
1998-04-26
|
5KB
|
96 lines
@2{EME v4.6 DEMO VERSION
@3
}Reviewed by your friendly Music Editor, Mike Richmond
@4
After first seeing this extension on AZ 2 (I think - it was a very
early issue) I was very interested in obtaining the full version.
Unfortunately no distributer details were included so I never got
it...
@1
Anyway, I obtained this demo version and gave it a slam.
Unfortunately the full version is only available from Australia and
I am far too lazy to sort out currency etc. seeing as I never use
Amos's music commands anyway. But if anybody fancies it, contact :
@5
Public Domain Plus,
PO Box 791,
Hornsby, NSW,
Australia. 2077.
@3
I have no idea if they're still around or anything so don't ask me!
@4
Installation is easy - it just copies straight over your original
AmosPro_Music.lib file and improves it beyond recognition - fixing
the bugs in the original file and adding new features.
@4Negative point number one - When you select 'About Loaded
extensions' from the Amos menu, EME's entry is FAR too wide and
goes off the screen. It's purely aesthetic but it looks ugly.
@3
Once Amos is loaded, there is little to suggest there have been any
changes until you try the new commands.
@5
As well as a (bug fixed) Track Play, there is also a Track Pause
and Track Cont command which are very useful. Unfortunately, there
seems to be a bug in the Track Play command that crashes the
computer at the end of a song unless you have previously used the
Track loop Off command. Nasty, and means that your music HAS to be
looped with Track loop now. if you want a short tune, you'll have
to stop it yourself!
@1
Commands are also included to turn off Tracker music on a
particular channel so you can play sound samples over the top -
essential for games and it saves you using .abk music. You can
finally set the volume of a Tracker module - at last it is possible
to fade music smoothly in and out like in 'real' games!
@4Some less useful commands that may be useful for Module players and
the like are TRNUMINST which tells you how many instruments are
used in a Tracker module, TRLINE which tells you the position in
the current block, TRPERIOD which returns the last note played on a
specified channel and TRINST which names the last instrument played
on a channel.
@3
Amos's sample looping problems have finally been solved - samples
on one or more voices can be set to loop, and in this extension the
command really works! You can also change the speed of a sample
'on the fly' for smooth slides and give samples priority so your
bullet sounds aren't drowned out by explosions, for example.
@5
The MONITORSAMPLE and TAKESAMPLE commands really make this
extension useful. Yes - they provide direct sound sampler support.
TAKESAMPLE isn't in the demo, but if the results of the
MONITORSAMPLE command are anything to go by it could be the best
command of ANY extension. There again, it could be safer to write
your own (if you know how - the relevant source was on a previous
issue of AZ). There is no info on it's maximum sample rate. I
could not produce an error with MONITORSAMPLE, even when I went up
to 500,000 Hz (CDs are recorded at 44,100 Hertz). As a guess,
based on my machine's prior performance, I'd say I got at least
20,000 Hz out of it (I sample most instruments at about that then
downsample them so they take up less space). Roughly, with the top
sampling software and hardware, an A500 can sample at 29,000 Hz and
an A1200 (no fast RAM) at about 44,000 Hz. Most mono samplers are
rated up to 59,000 Hz so there's no danger of blowing up your
sampler! Stereo sound samples aren't supported (at elast in the
Monitor mode) which is just as well because they aren't much use -
they take up twice as much RAM as mono samples, can only be sampled
at half the speed, use up two sound channels and sound damn near
the same!
@1
All in all, this extension has some great commands, but many of the
Tracker commands are useless, or available in craft (which just
about everybody has now) and it's real saving grace is the sampler
support. If you're writing a sampler prog and can't write your own
routines to take samples, it may be worth checking out.
@4
Without knowing the price of this extension, I'd give it a rating
of 7/10. If it is less than a tenner it'd get 8/10. More than
£15 and it'd get 6/10.
@5
Thanks for the info Mike. Strange that the Track Play command has
had its bugs fixed only to be implemented with a new one!!! Still,
the extension may be of some use to games writers out there - check
it out and let us know if anyone manages to get the full version.