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Analog Box
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85% |
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Version 1.12 reviewed by Mitch Bechtel - 05/21/99 In the recent rush of software audio synthesis programs, it can get frustrating trying to find one that fits your creative working style. Many of the recent software synthesizers to be released try to simplify the interface by limiting the synthesis abilities to the emulation of a classic hardware instrument or only giving you access to a few synthesis parameters. Analog Box (ABox) takes a different route by providing an entire set of around 30 simple objects that give you the maximum flexibility and power to make just about any audio synthesis creation you can think of. It's perfect for the patient and technically minded musician or audio enthusiast, but may be too "nuts and bolts" oriented for what many people are looking for in a software synthesizer. If you fit the description, the search for your software synthesizer may be over. First ImpressionOne of the first things I noticed, before even starting ABox was the extremely small program file size. No installation, no extra DLLs, no data files, just a tiny .exe that you copy to a folder and run. I instinctively figured it would be a waste of my time to even start-up, but soon learned that instead it was one of those fine pieces of code that seemed to have disappeared when Windows and 32-bit programs took over the 16-bit DOS world. Later, I also learned that the entire program was coded with Assembly language, a very impressive (and maybe somewhat crazy) feat. The authors commitment to efficiency and quality can be seen in both the software and the examples available from the Circuit Gallery on the AndyWare web site. The Music circuits are all pretty amazing examples of the program's potential. The InterfaceABox has a clean looking, intuitive and functional interface. Although it doesn't use most of the standard Windows interface controls, it's controls are logically designed and easy to pickup right away. Creating and moving around large and complex synthesizer circuits is easy. Simply right-click to add a new object or left click on the "project desktop" and drag the mouse to scroll around. The absents of scroll bars keeps things clean, but it would be nice to have a point of reference when moving around larger circuits.
A nice touch to the ABox interface is a few visual customization options. It is important to get a program looking and acting how you want when you spend hours staring at it. The settings dialog allows you to change how objects behave when the mouse cursor hovers over them, whether or not objects are labeled and the colors used by the program.
The ObjectsABox provides you with about 30 useful and well implemented objects which are used as the building blocks of a synthesis circuit. Each object has it's own set of options available by right-clicking anywhere on the object. Most of the objects are extremely basic allowing you to setup mouse adjustable controls (knobs and buttons), sound generators (oscillators, noise, file objects), I/O devices (Wave In, Wave Out), routers (splitters, mixers, multiplexers) and a whole array of signal altering objects including math functions, envelopes and filters.
The Oscilloscope takes two inputs which allow it to display two signals in the same area (great for stereo signals). By default one is blue the other is red. It can be adjusted to display samples ranging from 1 pixel per sample (1/4) to 1 pixel for the first sample in each consecutive 512 sample frame (128). The vertical range and offset of each signal can also be adjusted by plugging in knob controls. The Spectrum Analyzer takes one input and displays both real-time and average trace information, each in a different color. It has 3 horizontal range display settings. The vertical range can also be adjusted by plugging in a knob control. One object surprisingly absent from an otherwise very complete set is a MIDI input object. The inability to accept MIDI input substantially lowers the value of the program in a music studio. Because the program is still new and under development, I am assuming this is feature will be eventually added later on. The OutputThe program generates it's 44.1 kHz, 16-bit output in real-time, allowing you to hear all changes as they are made. Impressively, the sound even continues playing when you are switching the number of audio buffers in the settings dialog. The uninterrupted output allows you to focus on your synthesizer and forget about the interface and stopping and starting the audio output.
The program does occasionally generate glitches in the audio when you move objects around or start an external program. Increasing the number of sound buffers can help prevent most of these glitches, but some occur even with the maximum number of buffers set. The faster your machine, the less of a problem this is. I tested ABox on a Pentium 200 and noticed only occasional glitches with small circuits, but quite a few when moving around larger ones.
Loading and Saving Your ResultsComplete .abox circuit files can be loaded as a new project from the file menu or drag-and-dropped into the program. They can also be pasted into your current project from the edit menu. The paste file function is incredibly useful because it allows you to easy create complex circuits from your own library of simpler circuits or ones you have downloaded from the AndyWare Circuit Gallery. Two minor file loading complaints are the lack of a most recent files list found in most Windows program's file menu and how ABox always resets the open dialog to the "My Documents" folder when it is started. These make opening circuit files more tedious than it should be. Complete synthesis circuits can be easily saved from the file menu. Unfortunately the save option in ABox always asks for a filename and if you want to overwrite the file, even if you just want to re-save changes to the currently opened file. This is the result of a missing While saving your circuits is straight forward, saving the audio output generated by your circuits is not quite as simple. You can either use an external audio capture program such as Total Recorder which allows you to record what plays through your sound cards wave out before it leaves the digital domain, or you can create a mini sub-circuit that writes the audio signal to a file object and saves the raw audio data. It would be a lot more convenient if ABox offered a more automated method of recording the output to a wave file. See the side bar to the right for more details on how to convert between ABox's raw audio files and Standard Wave files. Bugs/StabilityFor the most part, the program was very stable and ran for hours without a problem. The only exception occured when externally modifying files that ABox was also working with internally, which caused ABox to stop functioning or sometimes even crash. This is easy enough to avoid and usually only required the circuit to be reloaded. Another minor problem I ran into occurred when stopping and starting the circuit. Sometimes it seemed that I had to adjust a knob in order to cause it to send the proper value. This can be seen in the player.abox circuit downloadable from the side bar to the right. Final AnalysisABox combines a basic set of well implemented audio synthesis objects and an intuitive interface that is all efficiently coded. The program is both fun and empowering, giving you the ability to create audio synthesis circuitry ranging from simple sine wave generation to complex music sequences and effects. This "low-level" power and flexibility comes at the price of time consuming circuit creation and requires a good technical understanding of sound synthesis. If you're looking for a program that you can start up and quickly begin playing with a bunch of analog synth presets without getting your hands dirty, you'll want to look elsewhere. But if you're a technically minded and patient musician or audio enthusiast, this program is an amazing tool for creating just about any virtual synthesizer you can think of. Pros
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A really cool feature of ABox's Wave Out object is that you can set which Wave Out device to direct the output to. This allows you to use multiple Wave Out objects for as many sound cards/outputs as you want (useful for sending to external mixers and effects).