Product ReviewsMultimedia software
Anyone familiar with Cakewalk Pro on the PC could be forgiven for thinking Metro is a Mac version of that popular package. They'd be wrong. Metro started life as Dr T's Beyond, and was then adopted by OSC as a MIDI sequencing companion to its DECK multi-track audio software, and it got its present name. OSC was then bought by Macromedia, and Metro languished until Twelve Tone Systems, best known for its PC MIDI software Cakewalk, took it on board. The company took the program's creator, Jeremy Sagan, along with it. Over the past two years, Twelve Tone has taken Cakewalk Metro from version 3.5 through many different incarnations until this latest version, 5.0, and the company has shown itself to be serious about developing the program into a big player. Metro is now a self-contained program which integrates MIDI and digital audio capabilities into a common multi-track recording, editing and mixing environment. At the same time, Twelve Tone has kept Metro's price at a little under £200, which qualifies it as a mid-priced package. You can create up to 32 sections, each of which can consist of up to 99 MIDI and audio tracks. Up to 64 digital audio tracks can be run - although you'll need plenty of RAM to handle that many, as each audio track will require at least 5Mb of RAM. Metro provides realtime, step-time, punch in/out, partial and loop recording options; the latter lets you build up multiple takes for a part, or overdub multiple parts. It can record audio at up to 16-bit 44.1kHz, or 48kHz depending on the I/O source (the program supports PCI audio cards via the ASIO protocol and dedicated drivers). One way of working is to record an entire song as a single section and treat the Section window as a track
In addition to a familiar track listing window, Metro has a Graphic Editor window which enables detailed editing of audio waveform, MIDI note and controller data - the latter via familiar 'piano roll' and drum edit grid displays. The MIDI editor also lets you record MIDI data in step-time. Also provided are an Event Editor window, for anyone who likes to edit raw MIDI data, and a Notation window, which automatically provides a score display of MIDI tracks for on-screen editing. The Instruments window provides a familiar virtual mixing desk environment where you can mix all the instruments assigned in your setup, with mix snapshot and automation capabilities included. Metro works with OMS (Opcode Music System, included on the CD-ROM), so you can define all the MIDI instruments and channels in your setup using OMS and a multi-port MIDI matrix interface. Realtime plug-in effects can be used in Cakewalk and VST formats, but unlike other programs, it associates effects with tracks rather than mixer channels. You simply drag and drop effects from a Plug-ins window into an audio track's Effects window, and the track's data is routed in realtime through the effects in series. Twelve Tone supplies a collection of native effects, plus three VST effects from Arboretum. For the best effects you'll need third-party VST bundles. Metro can also use Adobe Premiere effects for non-realtime processing of any section of a digital audio track; the program comes with BIAS' SFX Machine Lite, which provides preset effects in Premiere format. Other features worth a mention include groove quantisation, audio scrubbing, a realtime arpeggiator, the Rhythm Explorer (algorithmic pattern generation) and preset colour schemes, along with MIDI Timecode and MIDI Machine Control capability. Metro 5 ran very smoothly and reliably on a Power Mac G3/233, with external drives used variously for multi-track digital audio recording and playback. Given its sophistication and price, Cakewalk Metro is a very attractive program, especially for anyone starting out in computer-based recording. By Simon Trask |
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