Sequencing on a Shoestring

Sep 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Dennis Miller, Brian Smithers, and Geary Yelton

Audio Aspects

For large-scale editing such as moving big chunks of data around in the Track View, Home Studio doesn't distinguish between audio and MIDI. Just click on and drag whatever range of events you want, or draw pan, volume, or effects automation directly on the screen. Home Studio also supports automatic crossfades, which it uses when two audio clips overlap.

Home Studio doesn't offer many options for more detailed audio editing; you'll need an external audio application, which you can link to Home Studio, and the name of that program will appear in the Tool menu. You'll probably spend some time in the Loop Construction window, however, where you can tweak settings to better enable Home Studio to perform its looping functions. Looping is enabled simply by clicking on and dragging an audio clip to the desired length.

The Console View provides access to busing and routing options. There you can configure track and master effects and as many as 16 aux buses, and you can use Home Studio's considerable automation features. Nearly every control in the program can be automated, and it's easy to group multiple controls or take snapshots of specific settings for recall.

Home Studio ships with a Getting Started manual and not much more (aside from the two soft synths), but the online help is extensive. The Cakewalk forum is also a great place for help with the program, and you can rest assured that owning Home Studio will put you in a large family of users who will no doubt help you on your way.

Digital Sound Planet Quartz AudioMaster Professional 4.6 (Win, $132.90 download or $265.90 boxed)
Quartz AudioMaster might not look impressive, but under the hood it has lots to offer. Supporting 128 MIDI tracks, 128 audio tracks, 8 aux buses, and as many as 16 stereo inputs and outputs, AudioMaster has enough power to meet the needs of almost any project. It comes with a variety of audio effects and supports VST and DirectX plug-ins.

AudioMaster's interface is plain but functional, and it should feel familiar to anyone who has ever worked with a sequencer (see Fig. 6). It supports customizable key commands for most functions, and it ships with Cakewalk and Cubase key-command templates. AudioMaster presents MIDI and audio data as uninformative empty rectangles, however, which sets it back several years compared with its peers. You can perform basic cut-and-paste editing in the main track view, but more detailed editing takes place in dedicated audio and MIDI windows.

You can do a lot of sequencing and recording in AudioMaster, and if you use GS- or XG-compatible synthesizers, you'll appreciate its direct support of their effects capabilities. Its inability to load virtual instruments, however, may prove frustrating.

AudioMaster's unassuming mixer doesn't reveal its full potential until you click on six separate buttons to show its auxes, dynamics, EQ, groups, inputs, and gain/polarity controls. At that point the program becomes quite impressive, bearing resemblance to a large-format console. Adding insert effects is as simple as clicking on the DSP button and choosing VST, DirectX, or built-in processing from a dialog box. Once you've closed the dialog box, there's no visual indication of whether any plug-ins exist on a track.

Spacial Special

One of Quartz AudioMaster's standout features is an intriguing Spacialization view that allows you to graphically adjust pan and level of multiple tracks by dragging them closer to or farther from the user's position and left or right within a little room. Despite its name, it doesn't actually involve any psychoacoustic DSP, but it makes visualizing placement a breeze. The Surround processor uses perceptual manipulation, and although it's no substitute for true surround panning, it is nevertheless an interesting sonic tweak.

If you're into karaoke, AudioMaster can import and export special karaoke MIDI files (KAR) and display lyrics in a dedicated window. As a navigational aid, the window can display cues (markers) during playback. In addition, AudioMaster can serve as a master or a slave when synchronizing to external sequencers.

Although its software has a lot to offer, Digital Sound Planet's main focus is on serving as a Web site for online musical collaboration. In fact, the site provides a freeware version of Quartz specifically intended for collaboration. Be aware, however, that the company's support is not up to snuff. Despite our best efforts, EM was unable to make direct contact with the company to request a proper review copy of Quartz AudioMaster in time for this roundup. We ended up using the evaluation version, which doesn't let you save projects. If you like what AudioMaster has to offer, don't look for much hand-holding from the manufacturer.

FASoft n-Track Studio 4.05 (Win, $49 or $75 with 24-bit file support)
n-Track Studio is a versatile program that would be a good choice for basic and complex audio and MIDI projects. It has a highly modular interface — the various windows can be easily resized and moved around the screen — and it supports a large number of configurable options. The program's audio-editing features are extensive, and its support for common protocols, such as ReWire and DX and VST instruments and effects, allow it to be the centerpiece of a modern music-production studio.

n-Track opens to a blank slate onto which you can insert any number of audio or MIDI tracks (see Fig. 7). The program uses the standard arrangement of vertically arranged tracks, with data shown along a horizontal timeline to the right. You can toggle the display of configurable level meters on a per-track basis directly in the tracks area, which is also where you enable the Freeze function. (Freeze renders a track and its effects to disk, and then reloads it onto the same track.)

To begin a mixing or mastering project, you might use the file Import option, which lets you choose one or more WAV or OGG files and pick a time offset to place them anywhere in the project. Like Home Studio, n-Track supports clips, which are chunks of data that you can move around on the timeline. Its auto-fade feature supports logarithmic and linear curves, and it can apply effects on a clip-by-clip basis. Be careful when removing a track from a project, because the first option you'll see when prompted is to delete the actual file off your hard drive.

n-Track's included effects aren't numerous, but they sound very good and have parameters that you can update while a track is playing. The reverb, for example, has ten parameters (predelay, length, room size, damping, and others), and as with the other effects, you can apply reverb to only the left or right channel of a stereo file. Input and output meters appear on the effects' dialog boxes, and you can save as many of your own presets as needed.

MIDI features are ample. n-Track's Piano Roll view has an option to display only the type of events you want, and you can select what type of event will be entered when you click on the Place icon. By Control + clicking on that icon, you can designate the note properties (Velocity and length) for new notes that you enter. In the Events List, you can alter multiple notes at once — transposing all notes in a measure, for example — and filter out types of events that you don't want displayed.

Get Smart

n-Track has a number of smart and helpful features that make common tasks easier. For example, you can snap the cursor to the beginning or end of a clip (as opposed to simply snapping the clip to the cursor position), and you can toggle the display of audio tracks as waveforms or as simple text listings. n-Track also lets you choose whether many of its audio-editing functions result in nondestructive or destructive changes. In some cases (time stretching, for example), you can create a new file reflecting the changes or make changes to an existing file. It also has a handy option that displays a list of all WAV files used in a project, and its built-in CD burning feature is well integrated.

n-Track is available only as a download, and its documentation exists only as online help. (A PDF manual is available as a separate download.) A short, getting-started tutorial is included in the help file, and the indexing is thorough. The users forum appears to be very active, with many thousands of replies to nearly 2,000 individual topics, and the program is updated and enhanced on a regular basis. You'll certainly be in good company if you choose n-Track for your studio.

Image-Line FL Studio Producer Edition 5.02 (Win, $149)
FL Studio offers a slightly different approach to sequencing, using a step sequencer for its main composition interface. Individual layers of the sequencer are called channels, though they serve as what most other programs call tracks. On FL Studio's mixer, you'll find tracks, as opposed to what most programs call channels. But terminology aside, this software is a music-production powerhouse and has capabilities that extend far beyond the techno and electronica styles you might associate it with.

More than any other program in this roundup, FL Studio deserves the name workstation. It includes an audio editor, a robust mixer, numerous internal effects and soft synths, sampler players, and more. But that's just for starters: you'll also find a vast number of tools for manipulating MIDI data, such as the note-randomizing and chord-building functions in the Piano Roll; powerful enveloping tools, including the ability to create highly complex curves using LFO generators; and a variety of recording and automation features.

Step Right Up

When you first start FL Studio, the step sequencer displays four channels, each containing a sample player (see Fig. 8). Click on the button for any of the channels (Kick, Clap, HiHat, and Snare), and a Channel Settings window will open. That window brings you to the primary work areas for the type of channel that you're using; for example, sampler settings include a page to enable looping, time-stretching or pitch-shifting a sample; for replacing the existing sample with a new file; and for applying a variety of effects to the sample. At the bottom of the page is a waveform display in which you can access the Tempo Detection and Wave Editor features.

The default number of steps per pattern is 16, but you can easily change that (to a maximum of 64). Tempo settings range from 10 to 999 bpm in 1/1,000ths of a beat increments. Projects can run more than just the length of a single pattern. In fact, you can have an unlimited number of patterns playing as many as 999 times in sequence, and even loop that if needed. You can build complex formal designs in the Playlist window, in which you can determine when and how often patterns play. There are several tools for entering pattern triggers (such as a paintbrush and pencil), and you can customize the window (color schemes and zoom levels, for example) to your liking.

FL Studio has you covered for many common production tasks. It offers presets for everything from mixer configurations and randomized note timings to effects settings. The content is also worth a special mention. Dozens of individual samples, drum loops, and even complete multitrack projects will get you jump started, demonstrating the many facets of the program. The excellent online video tutorials cover aspects of the program ranging from beginning to advanced, and the online help system is extremely thorough.

FL Studio was a big, pleasant surprise for me in this roundup. The program crashed several times, however, during the review period. It crashed once when I adjusted polyphony while a sequence was looping (the problem was not repeatable). But the range of music making that you can do with FL Studio is vast. If you're looking for a program that is not your average sequencer, give it a try.

Mackie Tracktion 2 (Mac/Win, $199)
Tracktion was first bundled with Spike, Mackie's turnkey recording system (reviewed in the January 2005 issue of EM, available online at www.emusician.com). Since then, Tracktion has been upgraded to version 2, which includes more plug-ins and enhancements such as external sync, Broadcast WAV file import, new automation features, and support for 64-bit processing and Mackie control surfaces.

Like GarageBand, Tracktion has a simplified user interface with most functions always at your fingertips. By default, pop-up help appears whenever you hold your cursor over an object for more than two seconds. Tracktion has only three windows, each of which can be selected by clicking on the appropriate tab: Projects, Settings, and the currently open project. The Projects window shows project files and their resources, which may include MIDI files, audio samples, and recorded or imported audio files. In the Settings window, you can enable and disable audio and MIDI devices, specify the sampling rate and latency buffer, edit key commands, and indicate user preferences (such as the number of undo levels).