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August 31 2005
Sep. 15, 2013
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Review: Fervent Software Studio To Go!
Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4
OK, Let's Write a Tune
To show you what STG is like in action, I'll take a real-life tune I created for a client. It's a MIDI-based tune that uses a few MIDI channels (i.e., instrumental parts) and a General MIDI (GM) instrument set.
Put the CD in your drive and power up your computer. You'll soon see the Studio to Go! logo instead of the familiar Windows one. Press Enter to boot STG. (You can also boot with custom parameters. I often use the parameter fb1280x1024, since my monitor supports that resolution. Press F1 for help.) After a few spins of the disc, the K Desktop Environment will boot and you'll be presented with a familiar desktop (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. The KDE Desktop puts a familiar graphic interface on Linux (click to enlarge).
At this point, the desktop will display all hard-disk partitions on the left. (Note that your Windows partitions will also be available to read.) STG should have recognized your audio hardware, as well. If not, there are simple steps to configure it. In my case, STG recognized my M-Audio USB MIDISport 8x8 interface with no problem, but did not automatically turn on audio—although it did recognize my M-Audio Delta66 audio card.
No problem. To check the sound system's status, open the Control Center from the KDE Menu by pressing the "K" button in the bottom left and selecting Control Center from the menu. After Control Center starts, select Sounds & Multimedia -> Sound System (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. If Studio To Go! fails to detect your audio hardware, you can usually find it yourself with a quick trip to the Sound System controls. (Click to see the full window.)
The "Enable the sound system" checkbox should be checked. If not, follow these three steps:
Check that JACK has started. Open QjackCtl from the bottom panel (see Figure 3; it's the icon that looks like a quarter-inch audio plug) and make sure that the Jack Server is started. (See Figure 4.) If not, press the Start button. Like a virtual cable, Jack allows you to route audio between programs.
Enable the sound system. Select the "Enable the sound system" checkbox in the Control Center. Now select the Hardware tab and select Jack Audio Connection Kit in the dropdown box for "Select the audio device." Press the Apply button at the bottom.
Verify the sound system. Go back to the General tab in the Control Center and press the Test Sound button at the bottom. You should hear a test sound.
Figure 3. The recursively named JACK lets you route audio and MIDI between programs and physical inputs and outputs
Figure 4. JACK is now running
For my on-the-go project, I used Rosegarden as my sequencer and FluidSynth as the synthesizer. Start Rosegarden either from the bottom panel (the fancy "R" icon; refer back to Figure 1) or from the desktop or the KDE menu. To make it easier, let's use the popular QSynth front-end to FluidSynth. Since this is a GM project, I'll use the "FluidR3 GM" SoundFont bank.
After you've started Rosegarden, start SoundFont Synth (QSynth) from the Synths menu (see Figure 5).
Figure 5. Launching QSynth from the Synths menu
I won't go into the details of Rosegarden and QSynth here, because Fervent Software provides a basic tutorial for Rosegarden on the desktop and a good online manual called the Rosegarden Handbook, which you can access from the program's Help menu.
QSynth is easy to use. To load the "FluidR3 GM" in QSynth, select the "Setup..." button (see Figure 6), select the Soundfonts tab, and load the SoundFont by selecting the "Open..." button. You might want to delete the SoundFonts currently loaded to give you more RAM, since the FluidR3 SoundFont is rather large. (Note: Fervent has supplied the CD with SoundFonts; note the default location of the SoundFonts for later reference.) See Figure 7.
Figure 6. QSynth adds a graphic interface to the powerful command-line FluidSynth
Figure 7. Make a note of the SoundFont bank location; it will come in handy later
LinNeighborhood
What if your SoundFonts are on a Windows network drive? There is a nice utility called LinNeighborhood that allows you to access your Windows network. LinNeighborhood is not available from the KDE menu, but you can access it by starting a terminal window and typing LinNeighborhood. See this tutorial for help.
Rosegarden comes with many device-definition files to assign instrument names to tracks. (These files define a synthesizer's bank, program, and MIDI controller data.) That makes selecting and playing instruments a lot easier than pick-by-number! Also check the Rosegarden library for up-to-date files for your favorite synthesizer.
You can load patch information from SoundFont files into Rosegarden, too. Open the Manage MIDI Devices dialog box (choose Composition -> Studio -> Manage MIDI Devices from the main menu) and select the MIDI Soft Synth Connection drop-down menu. This should already be assigned to the Synth Input Port connection. If not, assign it now or to a device of your choosing. I assigned it to the General MIDI device (see Figure 8).
Figure 8. Loading a device definition file via the sequencer's MIDI device manager
You can now import the bank, program, and controller data from the FluidR3 SoundFont by selecting the device on the left (General MIDI Device, in my case) and then clicking the Import button on the right. Navigate to your SoundFont to load the data, and then close the window. The main Rosegarden window contains the Instrument Parameters section to assign your instruments. (See Figure 9.)
Figure 9. Instrument parameters
