----------------------------------------------------- OCTOBER 1994 ----------------------------------------------------- Source: The Australian (Author unknown) Computers have been a useful tool assisting in the compilation of music for a number of years now, most notably in MIDI creation, storage and playback. MS-DOS-based PCs, Macintoshes and Commodore Amigos are all used in the recording studio, but the Macintosh is by far the most popular due to its sound capabilities and the vast amount of music editing software available. While there has been increasing application of computers in this area, plus their use in the actual writing and editing of musical scores, until recently it was not practical to store audio data on hard disk because of the difficulties In getting a clean sound. Veteran British techno-rock band Yes recently broke new ground by being the first group to record an entire album In this way. With no use of recording tape, their new CD, Talk, was recorded and edited on a series of networked Macintosh computers and a single IBM PC. To do this, Yes with engineer Mike Joy, used a specialist piece of software called Digital Performer designed by a Boston, Massachusetts, company, Mark of the Unicorn. Unlike other hard disk-based music editing software on the market, Digital Performer not only allows the storage and playback from hard disk of up to 544 MIDI channels, but also integrates digitally recorded audio such as vocals, acoustic guitars, drums - in fact any instrument, Yes guitarist Trevor Rabin, who co-wrote all the songs on Talk, also produced the album. He said the Digital Performer system had never been used before, "It was great doing an album and at the same time kicking the boundaries of technology" he said. When it came to editing, it was all on computer. "Some might mistake it for being computerised music, but it's absolutely not that, "It's just a medium where you can retain the information with much more efficiency than on tape." Digital Performer can record an unlimited number of audio tracks, with playback dynamically allocated to the available tracks of computer hardware. Chris Squire, bassist and founding member of Yes, said the main benefit was in the sound quality gained. "I much prefer the sound that you get back from the hard drive and the Macintoshes and everything we used on my bass guitar than I ever did on the Sony digital tape machines," he said. Digital Performer sells for under $US900 (A$1216). To run it, a 68020 (or better) based Macintosh is needed with a minimum of 8Mb memory. Mark of the Unicorn is negotiating to find an Australian distributor for Digital Performer but until then it can be contacted on (617)576 2760 or far (617).576 3009. Parcels of audio data with a sampling rate 16 bit/44.l khz can be cut, copied and pasted in both non-destructive and destructive editing modes, a large variety of commands such as Trim, Strip Silence, Split and Zoom. Close Window YesInThePress.com For site comments, problems, corrections, or additions, contact YesinthePress@aol.com