Cakewalk Audio; Tel-Me Route-finder

Brian Heywood ponders some PC problems and waxes lyrical over the forthcoming Soundscape upgrade.

Preparing for the PC Therapy session at the recent Audio 96 show at Olympia brought to my attention the number of things that can go wrong when you're dealing with any system as complicated as a personal computer. If you consider the makeup of the average PC, with components sourced from all over the world — a mother board from Taiwan, hard disks from Japan or the US, a soundcard from Singapore, say, and so on — it's amazing that the damn thing works at all!

Apple Mac users have a slightly simpler life, due to the twin facts that their flavour of computer is more tightly specified — being made by a single manufacturer — and that there is less choice in the way of add‑on hardware, so there is less potential for things to go awry. Even so, music users operating at the 'bleeding edge' of the technology still have problems when they try to use the computer in new or interesting ways. Maybe all this confirms the old computer biz saying that "if you make a system that even a fool can use, only a fool will want to use it".

Cakewalk Notes

I've been playing around with the new version of Cakewalk Audio (v4.01) recently and this highlighted to me some of the problems inherent in using the PC in an MPC‑based audio system. Apart from the quality constraints due to the audio hardware — don't expect to get CD quality from a games soundcard — you need to consider the technical limitations of the PC as a purely audio platform. This is not a reflection on Cakewalk, which I found to be one of the best 'MIDI + Audio' programs I've come across to date (see the June issue of SOS for a full review).

The first point that occurs to me is that the audio software is held to ransom by the quality of the device driver software, and the hardware capabilities of the soundcard. For instance, I was running Cakewalk Audio with the original version of the Creative Labs Windows 95 device driver, which performed admirably for playback, but didn't allow Cakewalk to play any existing audio whilst recording a new track. I was also unable to isolate the line and/or microphone input for recording, which meant that I ended up with the backing track recorded on the vocal and guitar tracks. There are undoubtedly ways around these problems — new drivers, monitoring via external MIDI, and so on — but the point here is that the audio software authors have no way of predicting how a soundcard will behave, so are unable to give anything but the most basic help with these kinds of issues in the manual.

Staying In Sync

Another big issue is that of synchronisation. If you need to synchronise your audio to picture (say, video) reliably, then the MPC audio system just isn't up to it. Cakewalk makes a valiant stab at the problem, but unless you're content with sudden tempo and/or pitch changes in your music/audio, it's not really up to scratch. This problem is due to the fact that the Windows MPC audio system has no way of explicitly synchronising audio (or video for that matter). The normal way of doing this is by tweaking the sample rate so that there are minute pitch changes in the audio output, but the Windows MPC API (Application Programming Interface) doesn't provide this level of control. The upshot is that if you need to synchronise to an external device, consider a professional system like the Soundscape SSHDR1 rather than relying on an MPC soundcard.

Power Station?

The last point you need to consider is whether your PC is powerful enough to stand up under the strain of playing multiple audio tracks. This might sound surprising, since even entry‑level PCs are now pretty powerful machines. Unfortunately, the internal processor architecture of the PC is not ideal for handling audio data, which requires a large number of relatively simple operations to be performed repetitively on a large amount of data. This is why virtually all professional systems use DSPs (Digital Signal Processors), which are RISC processors optimised for signal processing.

Audio software is held to ransom by the quality of the device driver software, and the hardware capabilities of the soundcard.

The PC's hard disk sub‑systems can also affect performance by either being too slow or by introducing unexpected delays while they re‑calibrate themselves. Cakewalk could handle four simultaneous audio tracks comfortably on my DX2/66 with an IDE hard disk and ISA bus controller, while Cubasis Audio could only handle three on a DX4/100 with a VL‑bus IDE hard disk, so obviously the quality of the software has a big influence on the overall performance of the system. You can usually increase the number of tracks by reducing the quality of the audio — say, to a 22kHz sample rate from 44.1kHz — but this is a compromise you might not be prepared to make.

The bottom line is that you must be aware of the limitations of the PC as an audio platform, or take steps to eliminate them — for instance, by getting a fast Pentium with an AV‑rated hard disk — when you decide to start using it as an audio workstation. The advent of integrated audio and MIDI applications is a great advance in the ability to make music on your desktop PC: just be careful not to get caught by the shrapnel of exploding device drivers or an over‑enthusiastic salesman's promises.

Tel‑Me

While the Internet revolution continues apace, some might find that the patchy nature of the information available and the congestion that sometimes occurs means that the World Wide Web is not the best way to take advantage of the Information Superhighway. A more reliable approach is to connect direct to an information provider such as PhoneLink, with their Tel‑Me service.

Tel‑Me is actually a set of 'gateways' which connect you to databases around the country provided by the likes of Thompson, the Automobile Association (AA), and British Telecom. These companies keep the databases up to date on a daily basis — or hourly, in the case of AA RoadWatch. The databases cover such topics as travel, company data and news, with the Tel‑Me access software presenting a standard user interface so that you don't have to learn how to use each database individually.

While Tel‑Me isn't specifically aimed at the music business, I can see how it could be applied: for instance, if you were arranging a booking or a tour, you could use the AA databases to generate an itinerary of how to get to the gig, with AA RoadWatch indicating any roadworks on the way. You could then use the Ordnance Survey section to print out a street map of the area around the venue, and you could even use the AA Travelogue database to select a hotel room. Other databases include Thompson Classified and Business Finder which you can use to find services and generate mailing lists, Press Association News and Weather information, BT's directory enquiries database, and British Railways train schedules. You also get an Internet mail address that allows you to send and receive electronic mail using the Tel‑Me software.

The whole service is designed to be easy to use, is supplied in a 'shrink‑wrapped' box that installs like any other type of Windows software package, and has a 24‑hour help‑line available — at local call charges, which is a nice touch. If you don't already have a modem, PhoneLink can supply a v34bis (28.8 Kbaud) modem which has the added advantage of bypassing the normal synchronisation delay, which could be significant since the software will only dial out to the external computers when it needs to access new information, thus keeping your online time — and telephone charges — to a minimum. If you only need the software, a single‑user licence costs just under £60, with a monthly charge of around £12. The modem — a Pace Linnet 34fx — costs £176. Some of the databases also charge to access their information. In all, I was impressed by the usefulness of this service, which goes a long way to taking the frustration out of the online revolution. For more information, contact Tel‑Me on 0800 991155.