Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

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Pro-24, and it shows. Years of
development have honed itinto one of
the most capable systems available.
Combining powerful editing features
with extensive recording and sync'ing
options, Pro-24 is a worthwhile
consideration which should not be
ignored.
However, it certainly isn't perfect —
after all, Steinberg themselves have
improved upon it drastically with
their latest ST sequencer, Cubase.
What really lets Pro-24 down is its
song composition tools. It would have
Pro-24A V 1.88 by STEINBERG, H.Assennacher
Score Editor
I heavily on the editing functions
F provided by your sequencer — after all,
ywe
can't all be brilliant keyboard
oplayers.
u As well as the usual quantising and
'transposition
tools, Pro-24 offers a
rnumber
of extra editing facilities that
e are quite unique. These include
a
Remove Empties which erases empty
n
patterns, therefore freeing up valuable
ram) and Delete Doubles which
y
deletes any events that have been
trecorded
twice.
h One of the most powerful functions
i is the Logical Editor, which
nmanipulates
music data using
g mathematical operations.
l Although complex and rather hard
i going, it is perhaps the most powerful
kediting
function that Pro-24 has to
e offer.
m These bells and whistles are all very
enice,
but there's nothing like being
, able to actually see your music. Pro-24
offers what it calls a Grid Editor,
y
o
which is really no different to the Bar
Editor within MusicX.
u
r
e
32 AMIGA COMPUTING November 1990
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been nice if Steinberg had included
some form of graphical Arrange Page
such as the one they now include
within Cubase. Even better, perhaps
Steinberg should have gone all the
way and produced instead an Amiga
version of Cubase...
The company have gone to great
lengths to try and convince us that
Pro-24 is a very high resolution
sequencer. Unfortunately, this just
isn't true — clocking in at just 96 ppqn.
it is 100 pulses short of MusicX and
almost 200 short of the latest version
of Dr.T's KCS.
For those of you who haven't used
such an editor, they basically
represent the notes within your
sequence as a series of lines of varying
lengths — the longer the duration of a
note, the longer the line.
By just clicking on the notes you're
interested in, you can insert, delete,
copy and paste them to your heart's
content. You can also alter various
MIDI controllers from within this
editor.
Finally, we come to the score
display facility — and what a let down
this is. Amiga musicians have been
crying out for a decent score editor,
but Steinberg have reduced the Pro-24
scoring facility to a point where it is
practically useless.
The ST version of Pro-24 included
rudimentary score editing, but all
these have been hacked out in Amiga
Pro-24. As it is, all you can do is view
your sequence as a score — and that's
it. If you want to edit your music in
score format, you're still going to
have to fork out for a package such as
Dr.T's Copyist.
For most of us, such technicalities
won't make a great deal of difference
to our music making, but for Steinberg
to make such a claim is somewhat
misleading.
With the news of MusicX 2, the
choice between Pro-24 and the rest is
no longer so simple. If Microlllusions
hurry up and get their new release on
the streets, I can see Pro-24 having to
fight hard for sales.
But gripes aside, Steinberg's system
definitely delivers — if you're after a
studio proven system. Pro-24 is
definitely worth investigating.
The score
editing screen:
What a let
down
Evenlode Sound works 0993 898484
E285.95
t PRO-24
Mil
EASE OF USE
Rather unfriendly at first. but you'll soon
-
g
OSP e
t FEATURES 1111MINUL
uAlmost
everything you could possibly
sneed
from a sequencer is here. Would
e
have been nice if Steinberg had included
d
a graphical arrange page, also Scoring
facility is too limited to he useful.
t
o
P
VALUE
r
With MusicK coming in ut til most E60
oless
than Pro-24. Steinberg may be well
- advised to reconsider their current
2pricing
policy.
4
' OVERALL 8 0 %
s
qPro-24
is a rather unfriendly system, but
uit
undoubtedly gets the job done.
i Personally. I'll stick with Musia and
r
Cubase.
1
k
' look forwaici to the possibility of Amiga •
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