Martin Russ brings you the latest Apple news and tips.
It's always interesting to hear from SOS readers, and I was particularly impressed when Roland Hemming sent me a disk showcasing one major project that he has been working on. Theatre Sequencer is a Macintosh program designed to give live sound engineers control over shows and concerts in theatres and at exhibitions. Cues are shown on a neat cuelist, with notes, times and lots of pop‑up menus and easy‑to‑use slider controls and buttons. The program can receive timecode via a suitable interface (Opcode Studio 3 or 5, for example), or can be the source for all time synchronisation. Furthermore, Theatre Sequencer controls lots of specialised equipment that can be truly awkward to control from a conventional sequencer. Such equipment includes BSS TCS803 and 804 delay lines, FCS926 Varicurve parametric equalisers, samplers (for example the Akai S1100), Revox C221 CD players (via a custom interface), Opcode Studio 3 and Studio 5 MIDI interfaces/timecode generators, R‑technology Recital 16‑channel VCAs, Fostex 4020 8 relay boxes, and Steinberg Mimix VCA units, as well as a whole host of Yamaha equipment, including Yamaha DEQ5, YDP2006, and YDP2030 digital equalisers, DMP11 and DMP7 digital mixers, PM3000 and PM4000 mixing consoles (via custom interfaces), DDl3 and D1030 delay lines, and SPX900 and SPX1000 effects processors.
Theatre Sequencer will also control any item that accepts MIDI Program Changes, which means most effects processors. VCA Units are also controllable, as long as they will interpret MIDI Controller messages as fades. The program can also output 'Raw MIDI' messages for specific equipment not otherwise covered. As the name suggests, it is designed for theatrical use, but this also gives a hint as to the organisation that publishes the program: Theatre Projects, who are probably more familiar to readers of Audio Media, SOS's sister magazine for pro‑audio, TV and multimedia.
Roland Hemming plans to add CD‑ROM control, MIDI Show Control and MIDI Machine Control (as well as playback of QuickTime movies, Sound resources and MIDI Files) to Theatre Sequencer very soon. If you would like more information on Theatre Sequencer, please contact: Theatre Projects Sound Services Ltd, 13 Field Way, Bristol Road, Greenford, Middlesex UB6 8UN. (081 813 1112, fax 081 566 6365, or email Compuserve 100414,2220).
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Theatre Sequencer is how Roland Hemming produced it — using Opcode Max. Max is a graphical programming language for manipulating MIDI in real‑time, and comes with a collection of 'objects' which allow you to create editors, MIDI processors, and lots of other utilities. Roland has been beta‑testing the forthcoming version 3.0 of Max, and Theatre Sequencer is an excellent example of the 'stand‑alone' applications that can be produced. These will apparently be 'royalty free', and open up all sorts of possibilities for users to make editors for their favourite equipment, performance aids, utilities and more. When Galaxy is updated, and OMS 2.0 is released, it will even be possible to use Max librarians in Galaxy, which should increase the options for people who don't like using Galaxy's own PatchTalk programming language. More on Max 3.0 when I get upgraded. For more information on Max, please contact MCMXCIX on 071 723 7221.
On The Net
Use of one of the most widely‑used graphics formats may well change significantly in the wake of a recent announcement by Unisys, explaining that they hold a patent on the LZW compression scheme used in the GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) file format. GIF, originally popularised by the CompuServe network, has become probably the world's commonest format for picture files on the Internet. It is used as the 'standard' format for graphics files on the World Wide Web, as well as many other browsers and utilities. LZW compression is also used in the TIFF file format, which is used in magazine publication and desktop publishing. Any future software (commercial or shareware) which uses LZW compression will need to license the use from Unisys, and pay royalties for using it. Some net‑surfers have predicted that a new 'LZW‑free' graphics format will emerge within the next few months, and that GIF will subsequently cease to be used.
Apple News In Brief
- MAC CLONES
Bandai may be better known as a successful Japanese hi‑tech toy manufacturer, but they are the first licensee of Apple's Pippin system (or Pippen, depending on whose press release you read). Pippin is a CD‑ROM‑based multimedia platform which will use the PowerPC 603 processor running at 66 MHz (current PowerMacs use the 601 chip: the 603 is a low‑power chip originally intended for portable computers). The Pippin will also have a quad‑speed CD‑ROM drive, and use a TV as the display. Familiar Mac features like 16‑bit stereo sound, twin serial ports and ADB bus ports will all be present, and it should even be possible to add in a GeoPort interface to provide telecommunications access. Conversion from Mac programs and CD‑ROMs to Pippin is said to be very easy, which should mean that a large amount of material will become available when the Pippin is launched at the end of 1995. Competitors due for launches of similar products at the same time include Nintendo, Sega, 3DO and Philips... - MAC CLONES PT II
At the San Fransisco Macworld exhibition, a new American start‑up company, the Power Computing Corporation, said that they should have PowerMac clones for sale by the middle of this year. Power Computing intend to produce their own motherboards, and may well sell them to other manufacturers for repackaging and sale outside the USA — just as many PC clones are produced at the moment. This is not unexpected: PC manufacturer Olivetti are one of the major backers of Power Computing — so maybe the new clones will be Olivetti‑badged in Europe. But don't expect familiar grey cases without the Apple logo — the clones will be different in appearance, and may well have different price and performance breaks. Power Computing claim that their machines will be cheaper than comparable machines from Apple. I shall follow progress as things (and prices) develop. - MAC CLONES III: THIS TIME IT'S RADIAL
Radius are well known as manufacturers of video‑based add‑ons, but they intend to specialise in producing PowerMac clones intended for the rapidly growing video production and colour publishing industries. With powerful, high‑specification machines to cover this specialised market, Radius are going for the opposite end of the market from Power Computing, and may well change from their accelerator and board level business to being a supplier of complete systems. Both of these areas are quite specialised, and so it is unlikely that Radius will be very visible to musicians as a Mac clone‑maker. - VERSIT‑ILE
Multimedia continues to dominate the computer news. Apple is now involved with IBM, Novell, AT&T and other companies in an association whose aim is to bring together standards from several areas into a unified specification. Versit will bring together the fields of CTI (computer and telephone integration), Telephony APIs from AT&T and Novell, IBM's CallPath network interface, Infrared technology from Hewlett‑Packard, and Apple's GeoPort and OpenDoc technologies. - MORPHEUS IN THE UPGRADEWORLD
Opcode have just announced a new minor upgrade to Galaxy, the universal librarian, Galaxy Plus Editors, the generic editor, and Edit 0ne, the 'one‑at‑a‑time' version of Galaxy Plus Editors. Both are now at version 1.2.9. Newly‑added librarian‑supported devices include the Emu Morpheus and UltraProteus, Alesis QuadraSynth and S4, the Yamaha TG500 and ProMix 01, and names and SysEx support for the Akai S3000. The TG500 and both Emu products also get editor support. For more information on any Opcode product, please contact MCMXCIX on 071 723 7221.
Tip Of The Month
System 7.5's larger Desktop Patterns are very pretty, but the larger ones can use up a lot of precious RAM, and if you flick between colour and mono, you can get a shock, because many of the patterns are not suited to mono usage, and come out as solid black or white, rather than the grey pattern you might be used to.
Why, you may ask, should anyone want to hop about between colour and mono? Well, if you are working with a sequencer, running it in mono can significantly improve the redraw speed of windows, since there is less memory to manipulate. But if you are moving files around, having colour labelling and nice icons makes it much easier to use in cases when speed is not essential. By having a utility that allows easy switching, you can have the best of both worlds. I use colour for applications where speed is not essential, but run most of my music software in mono for maximum speed. To do this, I use Ambrosia Software's excellent shareware ColorSwitch 2.3 system extension to change between modes from the menu bar. You can contact Ambrosia at AmbrosiaSW@AOL.com. Alternatively, you should find ColorSwitch on CD‑ROMs or BBSs — subscribe to MacTel (see last month's Apple Notes) for on‑line access to lots of CD‑ROMs.
The problem is that your old pattern seems to get lost if you upgrade to System 7.5 and then change pattern. I had to recreate my blue background again — it's a mix of light blue and dark blue dots, chosen so that it looks nice in colour, but which also converts to the 'grey' pattern when seen in mono.