Review: Steinberg Sequel music software
Posted on February 27, 2008
Filed Under Vnunet |
Tim Smith, Computeract!ve, Wednesday 27
February 2008 at 00:00:00
Bring out your inner composer
Even though there are no guidelines for how programs should look, most
software tends to look fairly similar. This can lead to confusion when products
buck the trend as Steinberg Sequel does. Installation wasn’t a problem except
for the amount of disk space required: 6GB is a lot and that’s without space
for recording at 250MB for three minutes of eight-track audio. The disc will
work with Macs and PCs. Bear in mind that recording quality will be improved
with better sound hardware, such as the M-Audio Mobilepre. The other advantage
of better-quality hardware is the greater chance that ASIO drivers - which
improve audio performance - will be supplied. Performance also benefits from
newer dual-core processors. Sequel distinctly lacks familiar Windows landmarks,
such as menus and toolbars. The challenge of music software is that there is a
huge amount of information to fit into a small space so the icons in Sequel are
rather small. But this shouldn’t distract from the clever thing about the
Sequel interface: apart from opening and saving projects, there are no popup
windows and the same options are always in the same place, which makes Sequel
both intuitive and fast to use. The samples used to create tracks appear in the
bottom section of the screen, categorised by instrument and style. Recording is
simple and effects can be applied afterwards. For instance, when recording a
guitar, rather than using distortion on the amplifier, which is fixed in the
recording and cannot be changed, the guitar is best recorded without any
embellishment. Distortion and other effects are built into Sequel and can be
applied, changed or removed altogether. Sequel can also be used with Midi
keyboards to record tracks. There are dozens of instruments included, from
accordions to x ylophones, and they can be changed at any time should you
decide on a different sound. There is no option to use the computer keyboard
for recording notes, which isn’t a great way of recording music but can be
useful for quickly sketching out ideas. Even with the slimline interface Sequel
needs a lot of screen space - the specifications suggest a resolution of 1280 x
1024 pixels. It can be used on a smaller monitor but it gets cramped. Another
limitation is that it cannot use VST instruments or effects, which are standard
music software add-ons, such as the Studio Devil BVC amp simulator or the mda
Epiano instrument….
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