Creating New Wavebanks for Music Studio


    Let me preface this article with a brief admission that
I am not a programmer so the details of developing waveforms
for MStudio are still somewhat unclear to me. I will present
information that has worked for me, and each user should
adapt this to their own specific situation. I will also
assume that the reader is in possession of MStudio 2.0 and
some sound digitizing program.

                  Recording a Sound

    Lets begin by selecting a sound source for recording.
The best source of sounds are other digitized sounds. For
example, a compact disk or sampler synthesizer contain sound
recorded in the digital domain. Using a sound digitizing
program on the GS (Audio Animator, Sonic Blaster, Future
Sound, etc.) record the sound with the highest sampling rate
possible and set the recording level on the digitizing
program to a strong, (but not over maximum) level.

                   Editing Sound

    The next step is to playback the sound and listen for
possible cuts for reducing the sound to its smallest usable
form. The reason being , the maximum amount of digitized
sound is 64k in MStudio. This step could take some time,
because of the trial and error nature of the process. I
would always save subsequent trials (takes) on to a data
disk. Keep in mind that the attack of a sound is quick and
one of the most characteristic, try to keep as much of this
as possible. The sustained middle part and the decay part of
the sound can be shaped further in MStudio itself so don't
be afraid to do some cutting in these sections of the sound.
Most digitizing programs should display the amount of memory
required for each sound on the desk top.

                Saving the Sound

    Save the final master sound to the ASIF format. I
believe this format stands for the Apple Sound Interchange
File (format). MStudio will only accept sound files in this
format. This format is based on Electronic Arts IFF format
developed for the Amiga.

             Loading the Sound into MStudio

    My MStudio manual is very sketchy on the this step.
MStudio should be loaded into the GS, and either a song or a
few notes should be entered onto the staff to serve as a
playback check. Now the fun begins:

Switch the disk to the file with the ASIF sound, and attempt
to open the file. If the file was in the correct format it
will load. A couple of options will be available to you.
First, "Clear sound area before IFF load, will erase all 15
instrument sounds and load the new file (which has now
become a wavebank) into ALL of the instruments. Also a Warning
message will appear on the screen that instruments in memory will
be erased

                Designing Instruments

With the new wavebank as a source, go into the Instrument
Design menu and begin the long process of developing an
attack, sustain, and decay for each instrument. I would
check my results with the song loaded into memory.


                 IMPORTANT NOTE

Before continuing and developing other new instruments from
the new wavebank, other ASIF sound files may be loaded into
MStudio, up to the point at which 64k has been reached. For
each of these loads DO NOT CLEAR the sound area. Each sound
file will load into the alternate instruments as "samples"
which become part of the MStudio wavebank. As an example, if
three ASIF sound files can be loaded into MStudio, then
Instruments: 1,4,7,10,13 will be based on the first sound
file loaded; Instruments 2,5,8,11,14 will be based upon the
second file loaded and 3,6,9,12,15 will be based on third.


                 Reserved Opinion

MStudio has tremendous potential for being a Midi
workstation unlike any thing else on the market today. Two
problems have developed since the release of MStudio 2.0.
First, Activision has withdrawn "active" development for
this product on the IIGS. Second, Apple Co. has passively
let developers create many different sound file formats in
which to save work to. Most are incompatible with each
other, and even those that are supposedly in the ASIF format
might be incompatible. The result of which only frustrates
the musician and causes further lack of support for the GS

                          Greg