Atari software

Roland W30 editor and additive synthesiser v1.1 by J.S.Mclennan 4/90

As far as I know, the W-30 operating system (I use version 1.05) will not allow samples to be transfered over MIDI. As a result of this it is not possible to use the W-30 with the powerfull sample editing software that is available on the ST (e.g. Steinberg's Avalon)

To get around this problem, this program loads W-30 samples via the ST's disk drive, which is actualy faster than using MIDI, but requires some disk swapping. The program is nowhere near as powerfull or as fast as the professional software, but it's free.

Using any of the options under the 'W-30 disk' menu requires a W-30 disk in the ST's disk drive, if an ST disk is in the drive the program will reconize this and cancel the operation so it won't damage the disk.

Unfortunatly a tone cannot be heard from within this program; so to hear the effect of your edit the sound must be saved to a W-30 disk and loaded into the W-30.

Once an edited tone has been saved back to a W-30 disk it must be loaded into the W-30 using the LOAD TONE function. It can then be played as any other tone would be.

On running the progam, you are presented with two sample windows, currently blank. The top window displays the whole sample, the area in inverse is displayed in greater detail in the main window. The buttons beside this window are for the different levels of magnification, 1:1 the most detailed, 1:16 the least.
The draw button allows you to redraw the sample in the main window. Press the right mouse button to stop.
Clicking on any area in the top window turns it inverse and updates the main window to show that area.
Clicking on the tone name opens a dialog box where you can enter another name.

A list of the menu options.

Desk accessories won't work with the program at present and so are unselectable.

Load Tone:- Presents you with a list of all the tones on the W-30 disk, sub-tones and tones that are longer than the available memory are unselectable.
To load a tone, click on it's name, then click on OK.

Save Tone:- Saves the tone in memory onto a W-30 disk, if there isn't enough disk space then the operation will be cancelled.

Quit:- Quits the program and returns you to the desktop.

30k to 15k:- Converts a 30k tone into a 15k tone and so halving the tone's length with only a slight reduction in sound quality.

Halve Sample:- As above, but also works on a 15k tone so you can convert to a psuedo sample rate of 7.5k, or even less. This function can also be used to transpose a tone up an octave.

Optimize:- Increases the volume of the tone for the maximum signal-to-noise ratio. After calculating the maximum possible factor you can then choose to continue or cancel.

Pitch Change:- Changes the pitch of a tone without changing the length. Enter the amount of pitch change (50-200%) and the block size.

To create a sound, click on the edit partial button. The screen will change to show the envelope of the selected partial, it's status (on or off), and it's frequency.
To select another partial for editting click on the relevant mumber and that partial will be displayed.
Click on the 'on' button if you want the partial to be active, or 'off' if you don't.The frequency cannot be altered.
The envelope controls the amplitude of the partial.
To edit the envelope, click on the draw envelope button. The old envelope will be cleared. Draw in the new one using the mouse, press the right mouse button to stop.
When you have edited the partials you want click on the quit button to return you to the main display, this shows the active partials and their envelopes.
Select the length of the sound to be calculated by clicking on the change length button. The length can only be between 0.4 and 2.0 seconds and will be rounded to the nearest 0.4 seconds.
Click on the calc sound button to calculate the sound, depending on the amount of partials used and the sound length this may take quite some time. When the sound has been calculated you are returned back to the main screen where the new sound is shown in the windows.
Save the tone to disk, load into your W-30 and see if it's any good.

Additive Synthesiser:- You can now change the frequency of each partial.

Show Info:- The memo can now be edited and saved back to disk. It's a lot easier to type in a memo using the ST's keyboard than the W30's Keypad.

Time Stretching:- You can time stretch (or compress) a tone using the pitch change option. For example, to stretch a tone to twice it's length change the pitch by 200% save this tone and load it into the W30. Now when this tone is played back at one octave below it's original pitch it will be twice as long.