U&I SOFTWARE METASYNTH STUDIO 2.7 (MAC)

Jun 1, 2001 12:00 PM, By Jeff Burger

You can paint with a variety of brushes designed for musical applications.

Since it burst onto the scene in 1998, U&I Software's MetaSynth has offered Mac users a unique collection of sound-design and composition tools. EM's last review of the program (in the August 1998 issue) covered version 2.0, and since that time, a slew of new features has been added. U&I now offers the MetaSynth Studio 2.7 bundle, which consists of sibling products MetaTrack 1.4 and Xx 1.3 along with updated MetaSynth software. You can also purchase the MetaSynth Studio 2.7 bundle's elements separately. MetaSynth is $299. MetaTrack ($99) and Xx ($129) are available only through the Internet.

With its algorithmic composition, MIDI-to-PICT, and PICT-to-MIDI features, Xx hasn't changed much since its review appeared in the March 1999 issue. The same can't be said about MetaSynth, which has evolved considerably in the past few years. Also, MetaTrack, a multitrack environment for arranging and scheduling MetaSynth sounds, now augments MetaSynth. (For more information about MetaSynth, see “Master Class: Mastering MetaSynth” in the February 2001 issue.)

META BASICS

MetaSynth lets you design, manipulate, and render an unparalleled array of sounds using tools borrowed from the world of computer graphics. At the program's core is the Image Synth, a two-dimensional canvas that contains the information used to play any sound source you select. The Image Synth's horizontal axis is time, and its vertical axis is pitch (see Fig. 1). You can import photos and graphics, paint directly on the canvas with a variety of brushes designed for musical applications, and apply image-processing effects á la Adobe Photoshop.

Each pixel in MetaSynth represents one of 1,024 oscillators, with brightness controlling volume and color determining pan position. The Filter Palette provides the same tools as the Image Synth but acts as a 128-band, time-variant, dynamic filter for sounds loaded into MetaSynth's Sample Editor. You can receive wildly varying results from a single picture by changing the harmonic scale associated with the vertical axis, the timeline's duration, or the sound source selected for the oscillators. The results can be anything from new instruments to techno sequences to otherworldly soundscapes.

The Sample Editor is also powerful. Like the waveform editors of many audio applications, the Sample Editor provides standard cutting, copying, and pasting of mono or stereo audio files and offers many additional processing features such as morphing and convolution. The final major work area is the Effects Palette, in which you can apply a number of effects to a sound and manipulate their parameter settings in real time.

NEW SONIC TOOLS

One of MetaSynth's more distinctive new features is the ability to use displacement maps. A displacement map uses its pixels to displace or warp the master image's pixels. The luminosity of each pixel in the map determines how much the corresponding pixels will move in the master image — 50 percent gray produces no change, and black and white represent extreme displacement in either direction. As with most other aspects of MetaSynth, you can use preset images or import any PICT file or clipboard image as your map.

You can apply displacement maps in a variety of ways, all of which are guaranteed to result in outrageous images and equally outrageous sounds. For example, you can displace only one axis or use the Smoothing option to produce continuous curves in places where line breaks would normally appear. Smoothing is appropriate for modulation effects in the Image Synth or sweeps in the Filter palette. When you want to alter a sound's harmonic structure, transpose melodies, or create rhythmic effects, it's better to turn Smoothing off.

Other new tools let you work at the spectrum level. The Instant Spectrum command creates a high-quality fast Fourier transform (FFT) spectrum analysis, which analyzes as many as 1,024 partials from the first 2,048 sound samples loaded in the Sample Editor. You can use the analysis as a source for the Synthesize Spectrum feature. The results are not dynamic, so you have to apply a filter or other tools to make the resulting sound move through time. Instant Spectrum's most common application is to assign reference pitches to the results of Synthesize Spectrum, so you can create either single- or multisampled input sources for the Image Synth or for use in a traditional sampler.

A spectrum analysis can also yield interesting sounds when it is used as a custom scale for the Image Synth. Alternatively, you can employ the spectrum as a filter. Processing a rich sound like a horn's with a spectrum from another rich instrument like a cello, for example, can render sounds suggesting a stringy horn.

The new Wave Shaping feature uses a standard MetaSynth envelope to selectively remap the amplitudes of individual samples of the sound loaded in the Sample Editor (see Fig. 2). The graph represents an input-to-output map (or transfer function) across the range of sample amplitudes, so a 45-degree line, for example, represents a linear response or no change. Applying this tool to various waveforms is a great way to explore new sounds. Use it to impart a subtle distortion or a denaturing quality to a clean sound. If you plan to add dynamic filtering, the extreme settings yield a bevy of rude harmonics that may aptly suit your needs. As you would expect, the wave shaper includes a number of tools that let you create custom curves. The new Remap Colors feature manipulates an image's color in ways that are similar to Wave Shaping's effect on amplitude.

Two new input sources for the Image Synth are available: Granular and Sample Granular. Unlike the Grain option in the Effects palette, which provides a number of parameters to adjust the granular effect, those new features apply a preset granulation algorithm to the Wave Table or current Sample Editor contents. They work by taking small snippets of the source sound and looping them with slight overlaps. The frequency of the overlaps adds harmonics, with results similar to those of a tunable resonant filter. The amount and nature of the new harmonics are automatically derived from the Image Synth picture. Without any adjustable parameters, some experimentation is required to arrive at an image that yields usable results.

MORE META GOODIES

MetaSynth 2.7 can import and export custom scales of 1,024 values. That is quite significant when you consider that MetaSynth employs scales for harmonic spectra and melodies. The MetaSynth Studio CD includes a vast selection of custom scales (approximately 4,000, according to the manufacturer), and you can also create scales from the output of the Instant Spectrum feature. If those don't manage to keep you busy, you can create scales manually, either by entering text or by using Kenneth Newby's ScaleComposer freeware (which is available at the U&I Web site) to create them algorithmically.

For version 2.7, U&I shook out all known bugs and improved MetaSynth's overall efficiency. The silent blue grid now has a features submenu that makes creating rhythmic and note grids easier. The Grain effect computes more accurately and is two to three times faster, making it practical for lengthening sounds and transforming mono to stereo. In the past, MetaSynth Instruments remained in memory until deleted; the program now swaps them into RAM only when in use. The absolute sample-size limitation of the Sample Editor was removed as well. You can also save several steps when editing MetaSynth presets from MetaTrack by hot linking through AppleEvents.

METATRACK 1.4

MetaTrack is a rudimentary, 16-track sequencer designed for mixing MetaSynth sounds; its operation is straightforward. You begin a session by opening a library of presets that you created with MetaSynth into a source palette in MetaTrack. Then you create sonic montages by simply dragging various sounds from the palette onto a grid that shows time and tracks. Basic tools facilitate quantization, fade in and out, insertion and deletion of measures, and a link back to MetaSynth for editing.

MetaTrack has buttons for muting and applying effects to tracks, volume and pan settings for tracks, and global volume and pan settings. Although the design is not as intuitive or informative as a traditional multichannel mixing display, it does make it possible for all of the controls to appear on a single screen.

MetaTrack provides nearly a dozen effects, including EQ, compressor, rotary speaker, delay, and early reflections. The quality of the effects is decent, especially considering that a moderately powered computer gives you an effect on each of the 16 tracks simultaneously. The program also lets you load and save effects settings.

Once a MetaTrack mix is perfected, you can render it as a Sound Designer II file (interleaved or dual mono). You can also export tracks if, for example, you want to process them further in another application. Before rendering, you can apply a selection of reverbs to the mix. Despite the fact that MetaTrack is a bare-bones program, it offers an easy, powerful, and inexpensive method to create complex soundscapes using your MetaSynth discoveries.

META THOUGHTS

U&I Software has produced a set of tools that is completely unique in computer music. Mastering those new tools takes a while, but the results are worth the time invested. Discovering new sounds with MetaSynth is so much fun that it's addictive. MetaSynth is a must-have tool for anyone doing sound design or wishing to explore the realm of abstract sound. It is also great fuel for the imagination in the techno and dance music genres.

The MetaSynth Studio bundle bridges MetaSynth's unique visual metaphor with more traditional applications. Although you could simply dump multiple Meta Synth sounds into a multitrack audio editor, MetaTrack is ready-made for that task. Xx is great for generating new melodic phrases and even complete scores, and it offers a way to exchange data with MetaSynth. The threesome yields an incredible recursive loop of sonic-processing and composition tools capable of rendering final mixes for many musical applications. The bundle's 300 MB of additional samples take MetaSynth well beyond the ordinary.

Minimum System Requirements

MetaSynth Studio
Power Macintosh 601/120; 16 MB RAM; Mac OS 7.3; Sound Manager 3.1; QuickTime 2.0

PRODUCT SUMMARY

U&I SOFTWARE
MetaSynth Studio 2.7 (Mac)

sound-design software bundle
$429