Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

preview in Amiga Computing's
July issue, Tune Builder basically
offers a totally unique approach to
musical production on the Amiga. In the
past, producing music to accompany
either video or a multimedia production
was both expensive and time consuming,
and more often than not both,
Fortunately with its arrival, custom-built.
pro-quality CD sound, is within the reach
of quite literally anyone. And there's no
need for any musical equipment, talent or
studio facilities.
As any vodeographer will tell you, quality
pre-recorded Music is expensive, and
even when you've got the basic working
material you're still looking at a big investment
in time, money and effort to edit and
incorporate the music into your production.
Even then you're by no means guaranteed
that the end results will fit perfectly
into the overall production - crescendos in
the wrong place. quiet sections where you
want a bit of excitement, the list goes on.
Fortunately, Tune Builder puts all these
• problems to the sword by providing a fully
interactive customising process that
allows the user to create music of precise
length, tailored throughout in the style of
your choice. Whether you need a change
of mood or a dramatic crescendo, the
exact slice of music you need can be slotted
exactly in the right spot and repeated
as often as necessary.
The question is. how can a combination
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or those who missed our initial
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Aside from the ease of use, time
saving and all the other point
bonuses for Tune Builder, the overriding
must for any library is the
overall quality of the music. All too
often, libraries consist of innumerable
synthesiser specials with the
Inevitable 'chicken in a basket' overtones
that make for more of a novelty
item than a serious production
tool.
In Tune Builders' case there is a
slight cheesy feel on the odd track,
but in general the collection is truly
excellent with vocals and guitars
blended with believable brass and
Impressive percussion. Better still,
all the major sampling formats,
options and rates are supported
across Amiga, PC and Mac and others.
There's even a direct support of
the Toccata card.
In short. Tune Builder is nothing
short of essential for anyone
Involved in serious video or general
multimedia. It will literally save hundreds
of hours of hard graft while
improving your overall production
quality. If you can afford it, and can
envisage a return on your investment,
you can't really afford to be
without it.
Amiga Computing
OCTOBER 1995
Qualitg
of a musical illiterate, some software, and
TB's accompanying CD's create pro-quality
music that normally would keep a prcifessional
musician busy for hours if not
days. The simple answer is that although
you have control over the construction, the
tunes Themselves and all the hard graft
that went into them has been done on
your behalf by a team of professional
musicians.
Obviously, the process of transforming
a musically inept computer jock into an
instant impresario all hinges on the skill of
those lovely people who put TB's
Arpeggio CD collection together. During
what must have been a nightmare production
process, the musos behind the music
built multiple edit points directly into each
tune, which were then picked up by the
accompanying software A s a
Drag a nd drop simplicity a midst incre dible
sound a nd production qua lity
flhiH and match
On initial boot-up, the first port of call is
the Library section where you audition
and select from the 344 assorted tunes
spread over the 12 accompanying CDs.
Needless to say, some form of fiftering,
not to mention auditioning, is essential,
but fortunately both areas are
something TB is particularly adept at.
Initially, the library presents you with
the complete list and you're free to scan
the collection and read the notes
appended to each track - regardless of
whether the CD is actually in the drive.
If you find something you like the sound
of, either during a browse or a dedicated
search, it can be tagged and will
then always appear in the search window
regardless of subsequent search
parameters.
If time is of the essence, or perhaps
you already have a firm idea of what
you're after, the obvious step is to
consequence, the software can lake a
slice out of this digital loaf and cut, copy
and paste it back in anywhere you need it.
As any muso will tell you, simply taking a
random slice out of a song and slapping d
down elsewhere is a recipe for disaster.
Unless you're either very gifted or
extremely lucky the timing, the key. and
overall continuity will be shot to bits.
LARGE AND SMALL
During testing I dissected and totally
reorganised entire tunes, shrank them to a
tenth of their original size and expanded
others from 30 second originals into minutes.
Every lime the end results were perfect,
no clicks, no pops, no agonising key
changes or obvious continuity faults well
perhaps one or two.,,
As you may already be aware, one
Just a bout e ve ry sa mple forma t ima gina ble
from a .bit mono to full 1 6 -bit CD ste re o
forego browsing and go straight into a
search. As you've probably gathered
courtesy of the screen shots, filtering the
344 tunes is particularly well implemented.
The first step is to select a style or
even multiple styles. If this doesn't trim
down the selection sufficiently you can
narrow the selection further by searching
by word, defining preferred tempos
and/or a range of beats per minute.
Even track length, using greater, less or
exact parameters is an option.
DELIVERIES
During a complex search a click on
the button will usually deliver three or
four tunes, The next step is to audition
your selection and to do it you'll need to
fire up your CD-ROM drive. As you
select each track the software provides
a brief overview in the form of an
editable note, the ID of the track, and
the CD on which it's stored,
If you then select the CD Player
preview from the pull-down, a tape deck
control pops-up ready to assist the