Electric Cow MIDI Arpeggiator & Sound Chip Synth

Derek Johnson gathers together more Atari‑related news, products and tips.

In March's Atari Notes, we looked at two pieces of software from Electronic Cow — MIDI Arpeggiator and Sound Chip Synth — both of which have now been upgraded. The most interesting aspect of v2 of the 2‑track, 16‑step MIDI Arpeggiator is that it can now run as a desk accessory, allowing you to use it alongside your MIDI sequencer. Other enhancements include an individual track flip‑transpose mode, new manual, duophonic parameter editing and four different duophonic algorithms (the duophonic option, remember, adds a computer‑generated part to the other two). The increase in facilities has necessitated an increase in price, from £10 to £15 (plus £1.50 postage and packaging). But that's still cheap software by anyone's standards.

Sound Chip Synth v2.31 (which stays at £10 plus postage for the moment) now comes with speedier sample export routines, faster processing of sounds, STE/TT/Falcon DMA chip digital audio playback, a choice of sampling frequencies and a new manual.

Cowabunga!

Completely new from Electronic Cow is Snippit Synth, a 'granular' synthesis package for any Atari, costing just £16 plus postage. Granular synthesis is an esoteric sound generation system, for the most part confined to the research departments of universities. It's certainly not a feature of much generally available synthesis software, for any platform. The theory behind granular synthesis has been around since the late 1940s, and proposes the creation of sounds from very small sonic events (called grains), each of which is given its own frequency, amplitude and time position. These events are then combined to form the finished sound. In practice, much trial and error is necessary before useable results can be extracted, but start with the supplied examples, and experiment. It's worth the effort. The final result can be saved in 8‑ or 16‑bit AVR, SPL or AIFF formats, or dumped via MIDI Sample Dump Standard to a compatible sampler or synth. The one significant drawback, for STFM users anyway, is that audio playback is only available if you use a DMA‑equipped STE, TT or Falcon. Demo versions can be located at Electronic Cow's web site (dspace.dial. pipex.com/town/terrace/abi91/cownet.htm). Otherwise, contact them by post at: 350 Broadwater Crescent, Stevenage, Herts SG2 8EZ, telephone 01426 281347 or email electronic_cow@dial.pipex.com.

Falcon Focus

Sol Barnett, Technical Director of Sunrise Systems (their Falcon‑based digital audio workstation is reviewed on page 226) has generously supplied us with a collection of useful tips aimed at Falcon users. Thanks, Sol.

• Use Cubase Audio Falcon v2.06, the latest, bug‑free version of Steinberg's software, and defragment your hard drive before recording.
• Make sure your Falcon has had the proper clock modification done; without it, you'll have problems with digital noise and using SCSI hard drives. Remove the lid and you should see a small 74f04 chip located near the COMBeL system manager chip and the Falcon's CPU. If this chip is missing, you need a mod. Sunrise Systems can supply a little fact sheet that illustrates the necessary components.
• Make sure you have the latest TOS version; this can be found under the memory board in your machine, and should say 4.04.
• Only run your Falcon in two‑colour mode, since Steinberg's Cubase Audio requires all the processing power available. Running in colour overloads the system.
• Keep the number of desk accessories to a minimum (two at the most), as these also take up valuable CPU time.
• The Auto folder in your Drive C partition should only have programs related to audio — for example, FDI Int, Blow Up Boot and Metados. Once again, you don't want to burden the CPU with non‑audio software. If you'd like access to more Auto programs, use a boot selector to control what you need.
• Don't use Screen Blaster with the Falcon, as Cubase and other other audio programs won't work properly; Blow Up 030 works OK.
• If your Falcon has only 4Mb of RAM, upgrade to 14Mb. RAM is cheap at the moment, and Cubase Audio (which needs the best part of 4Mb to run) uses RAM to buffer audio during recording and playback. This is due to the way the Falcon's audio system has been designed to stop data loss and overruns. The machine crashes if no buffer memory is available.
• If you have problems playing audio through audio expanders such as the SA800 or FA8, check that the related audio mixer's controls are assigned to DSP in the audio mixer maps.
• For full 8‑track Cubase Audio operation, you need a very high‑spec hard drive — I recommend the 2Gb Micropolis 4221, which matches the Falcon's 8‑bit SCSI controller perfectly. Other drives work OK, especially if you're just using a few tracks, but suffer from audio pops and clicks, and can even crash when the machine is pushed to its full performance.
• Use AHDI Vision v6.06 with the SoundPool driver; this new update offers many bug fixes and support for larger hard drives. Alternatively, use HD Driver v6 or higher.
• Never play with the NV RAM in your Falcon unless you know what you're doing. This contains boot‑up information and, when reset, can cause booting and hard drive problems.