ARTICLES

OPCODE StudioVision Pro
by William Coakley 01/11/2001

Before Midi there was mayhem and chaos was on the face of the deep. And all the musical interface world was in darkness. And so it was that I endeavored to survive the great darkness. It was required that very expensive offerings be made for keyboard control of another keyboard. And control voltages and gates ruled upon the face of the earth. And when the hand of Midi moved upon the waters of the earth a great cry came forth and the light appeared. It was then that the god of software was called forth to claim what the light had brought forth.

Ah yes, and the first decent computer based sequencing program for the Mac was produced by Bill Southworth and it was called Total Music (1984). I still have the Total Music interface, software and a Mac that runs it. The lure for me was the graphic editing since it is infinitely easier to use graphic editing than what Mark of the Unicorn and others insisted was best: an alpha numeric list of Midi events. This was inefficient and time consuming to use - a creativity numbing experience. But Southworth went out of business and the next software I invested in that used the graphic editing was Opcode's Vision. I still have version 1.0.

During the first few years Opcode was in business their software was the best out there. They had captured the best of Southworth's editing window, adding even more usable features - and all this was accomplished without the bugs that Southworth was famous for. They even had tech support! But as the story goes many times over and over in business, eventually Opcode got complacent and lazy. They thought their superior position would be an indefinitely lasting reign.

They never implemented basic features like real 'loop recording' and real 'punch on the fly' which Southworth had years before. Not to mention my pet peeve: 'layered instruments with program changes' - which every other software had but Opcode. Until the very end, Opcode never implemented such a basic feature. Yet they had unique features like gated triggering (if you could get it to work) which was a most powerful ally for creative writing.

This made using the program frustrating. To have such a potentially great tool and to see it lack essential features that were necessary for basic creative work was mind boggling; but typical in the software business.

After years of trying to get them to implement layered instruments with program changes, I finally broke down and paid a thousand dollars for what I was told was going to solve the problem: the Studio 5 LX. This was a Midi interface with 15 inputs and outputs that had its own programmability. But it never worked right for me and didn't solve the problem at all. I was unable to use any of the powerful tools and memory of the Studio 5 LX because it caused compatibility problems with StudioVision and OMS.

I was so frustrated that every few months I would send them 6 to 8 pages of detailed bug reports and suggestions for much needed features. When I tried to explain the need for a new feature to tech support I got responses like: "Why would you want to do that?". I even arranged to meet with some of their development staff in California. No one seemed interested. I even spoke to Opcode developers at NAMM shows and gave them lists of bug problems and new features that were desperately needed. Some were features that Total Music had operational many years before. All of this was to no avail. Slowly over the years that followed when they were losing market share some of the features were implemented. For example, seven years after I suggested groove quantizing, it appeared in the program. Too little too late.

The worst part is, we all know that once you go through the pain of learning a complicated program, you tend not to abandon it at any cost - including your sanity. I still use StudioVision Pro for that very reason. I don't have time to learn a new program nor do I want to go through the experience of reorganizing my whole Midi set up. What about compatibility with old files? There's a big one.

Early in the nineties, Cubase 1.0 emerged and I instantly became a beta tester. This was truly the most innovative piece of software I'd seen. For example, Midi echoes was a piece of cake for Cubase users (Opcode never implemented it). But in the early days of its existence, Cubase suffered because it was not very intuitive and had a somewhat steep learning curve. Frustrated at having such wonderful features but poor human interface, I quickly abandoned Cubase and clung to Opcode's Vision. By now Mark of the Unicorn was waking up and facing the reality that they were going to have to implement graphic editing in order to survive.

Taking a closer look,using Opcode products had some redeeming qualities. If you consider their editor/librarian software and OMS (which no one liked) you had a pretty effective organizational tool that was invaluable for getting ideas down quickly. Just the fact that Vision could host 26 or more sequences in one file enabled my creativity to fly. But as always there were drawbacks. The introduction of new editor/librarians was very slow to keep up with new popular products. Trying to use the digital audio portion of the program was like trying to pass through a haunted house without a surprise or two (i.e. 'what happened to the track we just did?'). And the lack of human feel was an big issue since Opcode never implemented some clock variation in the right places.

But overall, it's always a compromise no matter what you buy in software. Opcode pioneered some good stuff and they aren't alone in passing through the main sequence of glory and decay. Nobody has it all under one roof. The question is how much of your piece of mind are you willing to sacrifice for the few features you think you might be able to use.

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