** 2 page review / 1542 words **

** DHS_DSK.GIF 2 column jobbie I reckon **

Digital Home Studio (DHS) is designed to offer all-in-one studio for your Falcon, and with integrated MIDI and sample sequencing, coupled with real-time DSP effects, direct-to-disk recording, and sample editing and synthesis, it certainly shapes up well in theory.

In practice however, there is an inordinately large block to stumble over: its interface. Like most trackers on the Atari, it doesn't use GEM, so there's no familiar windows or menu bars for reference points, no desktop accessories, and no cuddly Cubase-like blobs to move easily around your arrangement. But underneath this sprawling mass of buttons, reams of numbers and text, and flashing lights, really is a wealth of tools apt for creating professional-sounding music.

In addition, DHS supports an awful lot of variations on the tracker format, and will also happily load most popular sample formats (though its preferred is AVR), including Windows WAV, AIFF, SAM, and SPL amongst others, which bodes rather well.

Exploration: Interface

Most of the panels in DHS can be changed to reveal yet more sub-menus, but the main panel remains the same, no matter what mode you are in. In here lies a charming nine-segment LED style counter displaying the song and pattern position location, a colour-coded volume LED bar graph, sequencer position slider and transport controls for sequence and pattern navigation respectively, and boxes to set the speaker mode and number of tracks. If more than eight tracks are enabled (there is a maximum of thirty-two!), a horizontal slider bar appears at the bottom of the track columns, allowing you to scroll through each of the tracks. What would be equally as useful here would be the ability to alter the physical order of tracks, without having to cut and paste parts, but this in fairness is a personal preference and likely to be a working idiom shared by few others.

In normal trackers, tracks one and four are directed to output one (left), and two and three, to output two (right), but with DHS's speaker mode, it is possible to reconfigure this. With the Logic speaker setting, each track is routed alternately to outputs one and two, as would be more, er, logical. Better still, the Panoramic setting routes each track to both the left and right outputs on the Falcon, and used in conjunction with the pan control on each track, allow more flexible positioning of samples within the stereo spectrum.

The set of transport buttons are mostly self-explanatory with play, stop, fast-forward, rewind, and record (permitting real-time recording) all making a predictable appearance. But in addition there are a few other interesting features: the play loop button (this plays only the currently selected pattern), play step (and this plays just one step!), and step input button. This last button must be enabled if notes are to be inputted into the track. When it's disabled, playing on the keyboard will only audition the sample, which can be really useful nonetheless. Step entry is most definitely the best method to employ when inputting notes; real-time recording was at best very often out by a step or two, and at worst, dreadfully unresponsive.


Un-composed composers

For someone who was made to believe that musical notes are these little black dots with sticks on their ends, the concept of numerical composition is somewhat alien. However, after a little experimentation (and frustration, culminating in use of the piano roll edit view for complex structures!), DHS finally started to yield some promising results. It must be noted that, like other music software, DHS does rather lend itself to a limited genre of music, and that doesn't include baroque or classical ballet. But with its array of sequencing tools (making it shamefully simple to cut and paste ideas between parts and patterns, and quickly build up a whole arrangement), and a 4/4 rigour so vehemently adhered to, it makes light work of pop and/or dance music.

One thing that lends itself to this method of composition is the effect, and DHS has these in abundance. Everything from tremolo and vibrato, through arpeggios and auto-panning effects, to those cheesy pitch slides that characterise so many MOD tunes in the public domain, are easily integrated into the streams of notes.

Each track has its own mixer panel that sets the initial conditions of various performance attributes (more dynamic control can be achieved by programming in effects messages). These include main volume, panning, and the track's polyphony. In most trackers, this is limited to one: when the next sample is triggered, the one before is cut. But with DHS it is possible to have polyphonic tracks, and so notes can overlap which can be patently useful for creating things like arpeggiated chords using just one track, or just for ensuring that the booming bass drum isn't rudely interrupted by some fluttering hi-hats. Up to 64-notes can be played simultaneously by DHS, and so even if all the available tracks are used, each track can be at the very least duophonic.

Additionally, a real-time effect can be applied (either pre- or post-fade!) to any track, and with varying intensities. With most of the effects, the effects send controls the level of effect for that part, but with the filters it controls the cut-off point, and so some amazing real-time frequency sweeps are possible.

Tracks can be quickly muted or solo'ed by clicking upon the track number at the top of the column with the left or right mouse button respectively. Supplementary track parameters can be set in a pop-up menu accessible by clicking on the effects LED with the right mouse button. Here, you can choose to view volume or effects controller data alongside the note list, and opt for either audio or MIDI for its output (with yet another hierarchic menu that selects the channel for MIDI tracks!).

Clicking with the right mouse button in the middle of the track panel calls a completely different pop-up menu, which was initially ever-so slightly unnerving. This one holds all the options for global viewing of the track panel. For example, it is possible to change all the track columns into mixer panels, or to use a Piano roll edit (similar to the Key Edit page in Cubase) to enter notes into the currently selected track. This is infinitely easier to do, than trying to remember your eight times table when all you're trying to do is be creative.

 Extra bits

And yet, DHS has far more than the comprehensive sequencing features, with a January sale-sized cache of sample editing options, including effects, sampling capabilities (either direct-to-disk or to memory), and re-synthesis tools. The basic editing tools can be applied to a sound in whole or part, and comprise things such as fade in/out, reverse, phase invert, delete (and close up gap), clear, normalise (in addition to a separate gain/attenuate tool), and insert zero. As well as all of this, DHS also has a graphic-based, amplitude envelope shaper that can have up to an astonishing thirty-eight poles! In fact, this selection is only marred by a very obfuscatory system of copy and paste; one that is still somewhat of an enigma after months of fiddling with the software. That, and the Undo feature, which actually undoes every last edit performed on the sample, as opposed to just the very last one (you may as well re-load the sample!).

The synthesis functions, although outwardly basic, can be used to good effect to embellish an existing sound. Of course, it is also possible to create a waveform from scratch too, since as there are enough sound properties to edit, quite interesting samples can be achieved. Four different oscillators can be chosen from, although in the review copy only the square wave worked satisfactorily (the others produced quite spurious sounding garbage). DHS will even let you layer multiples of these, overlaying them with a combination of various modulators, including ring modulation (which is great!), and a four-pole amplitude envelope shaper.


Conclusion

Like Marmite, DHS is probably one of those programs that are either loved or hated. The only real concern I have for DHS (apart from the fact that it simply hates my Afterburner!), is whether it is a studio tool for professional musicians (in which case, it ought to be far more musically-inclined), or a nice bit of software to mess about at home with. But perhaps this doesn't matter. Doubtlessly, once you get over the initially befuddling modes of operation, DHS can do wonders with your MOD files, elevating their stature to more than just demo quality. And that does matter.

** product boxout **
Publisher:
SOFTJEE, F-47200 LONGUEVILLE, France
Tel/Fax: + 33 (0)5 53 83 64 67
Email: softjee@hol.fr
http://www.perso.hol.fr/~softjee/

UK distributor:
Titan Designs, 6 Witherford Way, Selly Oak, Birmingham, B29 6AX
Tel: 0121 683 6669
Fax: 0121 414 1630
Email: info@titan-bss.co.uk
http://www.titan-bss.co.uk

Price:
œ89.95

Requirements:
Falcon with at least 4Mb RAM, VGA/RGB monitor

Pros:
An inexpensive solution to audio and MIDI integration.
Excellent EQ features, and re-synthesis functions for samples.
A Piano roll edit!

Cons:
Not entirely happy with accelerator cards.
Non-GEM interface, makes it very musician un-friendly.
Odd clipboard and Undo functions

79%
** /product boxout **

** DHS_TOFX.GIF biggish **