Editorial
It's Summer! Time for cool drinks, suntans and Super Summer Sound. And there's no one better to introduce this issue than Jim Pierson-Perry, our stalwart Contributing Editor in charge of all things aural. Much of this issue is due to Jim's hard work and dedication to the cause of ST music. Jim, that's your cue!
GUEST EDITORIAL
And now for someone completely different . . . As your guest host, I am happy to present a jam-packed collection of programs, articles and reviews--many focusing on sound and musical applications for the ST.
The ST has taken a commanding position in the MIDI market. Its future appears even brighter as multi-tasking platforms for ST MIDI software are now appearing. Four MIDI software developers give us their views on this and other trends in Musical Workstations--The Future of MIDI? But what can a poor musician do? Musician Rick Davies faces this stony question with tips on buying maximum equipment for minimum bucks in Making MIDI Affordable.
The ST is also perfectly capable of playing and manipulating sounds in its own right, without recourse to MIDI. Commercial sound digitization programs are reviewed in Aural Presentations. Confused by different sound file formats? Don't panic! Babel can read all current ST sound file formats, and convert many Macintosh and Amiga sound files to ST-compatible formats, as well. It also marks our first program written using HiSoft BASIC Professional (also reviewed in this issue).
Those who like to roll their own should check our Programming In BASIC column for a painless way to include sounds in GFA BASIC programs. If your taste runs more to playing than programming sounds, the ST Theremin may be just the ticket.
When worktime is over, there is nothing like a good arcade game for unwinding. Always here to help out, START offers Arcade!, with three action shooting, stomping and squashing games in one. The month also offers the monochrome version of GFA Object, an object-oriented drawing program (the color version appeared in our May issue).
And we're not done yet! Desktop publishing aficionados will want to read the long-awaited review of PageStream, formerly Publishing Partner Professional, which was previewed last November. This month we also begin a desktop publishing column as a part of Business Applications, launched last month.
We've got a lot in our regular columns as well: DOS shell programs in Mac & PC On The ST, Dave Small continues his explanation of hard drives in Small Tools, cartooning on the ST in Cyber Corner and more on copyrights in Getting Started. And, of course, reviews of games, utilities and more.
Whew! I'm exhausted just going through the contents. Crank up the stereo, grab a seat, turn the page and let's rock!
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Jim Pierson-Perry |