Re: Is Metasynth good?

In-Reply-To: <B99AB9B5.9CB%xjscott@...>
X. J. Scott wrote:

> Should mention that it seems to me that metasynth is pretty constrained
> to
> octave repeating scales.

You mean from <http://www.uisoftware.com/PAGES/MS_image_synth.html>?
That'd only be a constraint if the repeating part has to fit within an
octave and the octave has to be 1200 cents, none of which is mentioned.
There's nothing about the maximum number of notes either. You've got a
Macintosh, have you tried the demo?

John's page says it's full keyboard, but it has to be updated anyway
because:

> Also as far as I gather it's non-real-time - you can't play it from a
> keyboard or anything; seems that real-time is becoming sort of a
> essential
> requirement for being a soft synth.
>
> Any one know for sure? This is from my reading their documentation.

Er, yes, it says so at
<http://www.uisoftware.com/PAGES/ms_FAQ.html#Anchor-Is-63374>. So there
you go. They've also got a low opinion of MIDI-based systems and tuning's
to "50th of a tone" which is only 4 cents.

Graham

>
> Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 19:10:47 -0400
> From: "X. J. Scott" <xjscott@...>
> Subject: Is Metasynth good?
>
> Should mention that it seems to me that metasynth is pretty constrained to
> octave repeating scales.

Correct. You can have up to 1000 divisions per octave, that can be
user-defined. Metatrack, another uisoftware product, can used to combine
Metasynth images successively and simultaneously, each with a different tuning,
so there's a workaround if you want non-octave-repeating scales, and I'd really
recommend getting Metatrack if you're going to make music with Metasynth.

>
>
> Also as far as I gather it's non-real-time - you can't play it from a
> keyboard or anything; seems that real-time is becoming sort of a essential
> requirement for being a soft synth.
>
> Any one know for sure? This is from my reading their documentation.

By itself it's non-real-time. Some members of the uisoftware list have
enthusiastically reported using Ableton Live to trigger Metasynth sounds in
live performance. I've never tried this.

For me, the Metasynth/Metatrack combination has been great fun and a powerful
sound design tool. You can download demos at
http://www.uisoftware.com/PAGES/index.html

Michael