Sunrise Audio Workstation

Take an Atari Falcon, strip away the outer casing, add some major circuitry and a host of external connections and package in a sturdy rackmount box. Stir in a copy of Cubase Audio, connect up a CD recorder, and the result is the new Sunrise Audio Workstation. Dominic Hawken checks out this unique new recipe.

Atari were the first company to corner the market in computer‑based sequencing hardware. I've always thought that this was something of a lucky accident — some bright spark in the R&D department came up with the idea of fitting MIDI sockets to the ST computer, and the rest is history. During the early '90s I was lucky enough to carve out a career as a session keyboard programmer, and the humble Atari 1040 (fully upgraded to a massive 4Mb of memory), proved the mainstay of my keyboard rig. I always found it slightly bizarre, when working in a great studio, surrounded by half a million pounds worth of SSL mixing console and untold outboard equipment, to think that the entire song was being generated by a home computer costing under £400. It was a hit‑and‑miss affair, however, with the computer choosing to break down at the most unfortunate moments. While the Atari was capable of functioning flawlessly for days on end given a stable home environment and careful use, throwing the thing in the boot of the car to transport it between studios certainly took its toll, and I managed to work my way through at least six systems during the course of three years — probably not a bad result considering the abuse that they had to cope with. I also remember working at Sarm West for a while, when one of the engineers connected my humble 1040 to the Synclavier (which recorded MIDI timing data to about six decimal places). How we laughed when we saw the results — the kick drum moved (albeit inaudibly) almost four milliseconds either side of the beat, and the system could only cope with a maximum of six MIDI outputs.

"Buy an Apple Mac", he said, and being young, impressionable and eager to stay in work, I did. I bought into major whizz‑bang digital technology — Cubase Audio, Logic, 64 MIDI ins and outs, fabulous mixer maps and sound librarians, the world was my lobster. OK, so it didn't actually make me play better, and it cost around 15 times as much as my Atari, but surely that's not the point.

Anyway, the upshot of the story is, I plugged my Mac into a Synclavier the other day — the timing was worse.

It's Just The Sun Rising...

As the Atari 1040 began to disappear from the shops, superseded by the latest Amiga and Nintendo games consoles, the music industry continued to buy up every last unit. Atari decided to launch a new computer — the Falcon — geared towards the audio world, with on‑board digital signal processors and MIDI as standard. The word was out that 8‑track digital recording would be possible without the need for external circuitry, and the release of this new computer was eagerly awaited. Production and software development problems emerged, however, and though Atari did their best to improve the system (and finally released a new operating system to fix the faults), by this time the Falcon had gained a bad reputation. This was unfortunate, not least for Atari — which lost millions of dollars worth of development finance — because the second‑generation Falcon which hit the streets was actually an extremely capable machine. In the meantime, a fall in the price of Apple Macintoshes had meant that much of the Atari's fan base had given up on the Falcon, and had either gone back to the 1040 or bought a Mac instead.

Enter Sunrise Audio Systems, who recognised both the value of the Falcon and the limitations of its packaging and marketing stance. Having used a Falcon successfully for music production, they decided to take the fundamental hardware engine and package it in a unit capable of withstanding the everyday knocks of session and studio work, building in all the extra circuitry and hardware needed to turn the Falcon into a professional digital audio workstation.

The result is an 8‑track digital recording and sequencing package (and by '8‑track' I mean eight individual inputs and outputs) driven by Steinberg's Cubase Audio for the Falcon and packaged in a sturdy rackmount box, together with all the relevant hard drives and D/A interfaces necessary to make it work in a modern studio environment. Sunrise Systems have also included the option of a CD recorder, to back up data from each session or to master your own audio CDs (compatible to Red Book standards) directly from the computer.

Computing Power

It must be said that, in today's world of Windows '95 and Mac OS 7.5, the Falcon is lacking in a number of respects. The standard display for processor‑intensive applications is monochrome, and there are therefore no full‑colour screens or icons to aid the programming process (though Cubase will run properly in colour with an optional processor expansion, and the less demanding software included with the system runs in colour anyway). Hardware upgrades are also less plentiful and more expensive than those for, say, PCs. Having said that, however, in an obscure respect Atari have a clear advantage over the Mac and PC competition, in that their operating system is not multitasking. Modern computers are designed to run more than one piece of software simultaneously. This means that processor time is shared between any number of applications, all eager for a slice of the computing cake. With the Sunrise Systems Falcon, only one program can be run at a time. This means that if you're using a sequencing package all the computer needs to do is to concentrate on squirting accurate MIDI data from the MIDI ports, or receiving MIDI input from a master keyboard. The entire computer is dedicated to performing a single task at a time, and accuracy — to a point — is therefore guaranteed. The downside is obvious, in that it's impossible to run a patch librarian simultaneously with your sequencing package, but if this is not required, the Falcon may be your best bet. After my stint as a session player, I programmed a sampler editor for Akai, running on the Atari 1040, which worked fine and is still available today. The problems began when we had to cross‑platform the software to run on Macs and PCs — with all of the constraints that multitasking involves. Believe me, if you switch on even the CD‑ROM driver on your Apple Mac it will affect the timing of your sequencer package, because the computer will begin polling the CD drive every half a second to see if a new disc has been inserted, at the expense of your precious MIDI timing.

Hardware

The Sunrise Audio Workstation is effectively a re‑packaged Falcon, with new D/A circuitry and Cubase Audio software. The resulting unit fits in 2U of rack space, with a floppy drive, power switch, dongle slot, and an optional CD‑ROM writer on the front panel. The power switch and keyboard connections are also on the front, so it would make sense to mount the unit close to your current programming area. External audio connections are all on the rear of the unit, with eight individual jack‑based inputs and outputs, standard MIDI In, Thru and a total of five MIDI outputs. Connections are also available for an external SCSI drive — to expand the record time — printer, meter bridge and external DSP, the latter being currently under development. A stereo microphone input, and optical and S/PDIF digital connections are all fitted for digital signal recording, and on the CD version, stereo output via phono sockets is fitted as standard.

Hardware‑wise, the system seems flawless.

Internally, the system is comprised of an Atari Falcon motherboard, complete with 14Mb of RAM (expandable with an optional processor board) and a 2Gb SCSI hard drive (which is capable of recording around 200 minutes of stereo CD‑quality audio). The whole unit is cooled via a fan on the rear of the machine which, although noisy, beats burning the studio down if the CPU decides to overheat.

Software

Sunrise have chosen Cubase Audio to take full advantage of their Falcon system, and they bundle the software with every unit. Steinberg developed the Falcon‑based MIDI/audio sequencer to coincide with the launch of the computer, and were hit by the lack of sales due to the problems with the initial batch of computers. The program itself, however, is extremely good, and certainly on a par with the other flavours of Cubase software currently on the market. The company spent a lot of time developing the program, and at one stage offered to buy up the remaining stocks of Falcons from Atari to produce a bundling deal and recover their investment, so we're not dealing with a half‑hearted program release. The main difference between Cubase Audio on the Falcon and on the Mac is that of colour support; the actual audio side of things is on a par with that of the latest systems available today.

Cubase itself is an extremely intuitive piece of software, with a front end that arguably influenced Emagic for their release of Logic. The screen can be thought of as a piece of multitrack tape, with recorded parts appearing as blocks and a time indicator scrolling from left to right across the display. Audio and MIDI data is displayed in the same style and can be dragged around the arrangement, or edited by clicking on the appropriate part. The various editing functions are comprehensive, and range from a piano‑style scroll of MIDI notes, to a waveform display with cut, paste and sample manipulation available as standard.

Any of the eight audio outputs and inputs can be called into play to record sounds along with sequencing data, and the results are committed to the on‑board hard drive. Quitting Cubase and invoking the CD‑writing software allows the user to archive any session to recordable CD — very important when a track involves a large amount of digital data — without the need for an external DAT drive. It's also possible to record a finished track back into the computer (after mastering onto DAT, say) and write a CD master to send to a pressing plant, or to check on a home system using any standard CD player. Other options include the ability to master CD‑ROMs and cross‑platform discs capable of working in computers and audio players.

In Use

It has to be said that the Falcon operating system lags behind the rest of the world by a couple of years. Despite this, once you get used to the monochrome display and the dongle‑style software implementation, the system does perform remarkably well. MIDI sequencing is glitch‑free, and the way that Sunrise Audio Systems have implemented the hardware certainly resolves many of the hardware problems associated with the original release of the Falcon. The inclusion of Cubase Audio is vital to the functionality of the system, with the usual attention to detail that we have come to expect from the company. The alternative systems that are capable of producing eight tracks of digital audio, played via individual outputs, certainly cost a lot more than the Sunrise system, and this has to be borne in mind when making any comparisons.

This is a good product, ideal for studios that require sensible hard disk recording and sequencing without breaking the bank.

Hardware‑wise, the system seems flawless. If only Atari had made a version of the 1040 in such a strong casing, I could have saved the purchase price in broken computers alone. The components used throughout the system are of the highest quality, and no attention has been spared in providing every possible interface necessary in today's studio environment. The system comes pre‑installed with all of the sound software that the user is likely to need, which is just as well, as the installation routines are somewhat more technical than those used by the Macs and PCs of today.

The sound quality is fine for everyday use — certainly on a par with CD quality — and the manual, although lacking in depth, sits happily along with the Cubase manual; it certainly should not prove a problem for computer‑friendly musicians to get the system up and working within a couple of hours. The audio workstation can actually be seen running by anyone seriously considering buying one, at the company's showroom in Warrington (see end of review for contact details) or at an East Anglian commercial studio where a system is installed. Call Technical Director Sol Barnett on 01379 641598 for an appointment.

Conclusion

All in all, this a good product, ideal for studios that require sensible hard disk recording and sequencing without breaking the bank. The Falcon is a good platform to use, and it delivers consistent and workable results, albeit in a somewhat dated package. The Mac world is rather in turmoil as cheaper PCI‑buss machines emerge and current software cannot support them to the level at which most users are accustomed to. The PC world remains stuck about a year behind, and, despite Windows '95, few professional programmers would use one in the studio to produce hit music. The Sunrise Workstation neatly fills the void, and is definitely worth checking out if your current setup lacks digital recording. Sunrise Audio systems have succeeded in bringing yesterday's technology kicking and screaming into the modern recording world.