Quinsoft		End of an era?

I started Quinsoft back in 1988 after I wrote a couple of librarians and made a load of sounds for the TX81z and FB01 modules. This was my programming learning curve which then went into orbit with a whole string of programs which only sold no more than 100 copies each. Ain't gonna get rich like this. It was fun to do, and as long as I broke even, it didn't matter. The other bonus that it put me in touch with a lot of people who became firm friends.

The real problem was Atari. For some reson they couldn't see that their biggest market would ultimately be musicians, rather than game players. The prices of PCs and Macs dropped, and even the Falcon was decidedly overpriced and underpowered. Too little too late. The remainder of their revenues went on the ill-fated Jaguar games console. So where are THEY now?

The truth is, the Atari was a bloody good machine, which had a lot of potential and all the hardware you would ever need for making music. Cubase was rock solid on timing and rarely crashed, unlike VST on the PC and the Mac. My conversion to the PC has been painful, and having invested so much in hardware, I still wonder whether an Atari and external hardware isn't a better option. To be honest, the audio on VST doesn't sound that good either. The timing has a mind of its own, whereas the Atari never missed a beat.

These programs were all written in Hisoft Basic which to this day makes the languages produced by Microsoft and Borland look like the shit that they are. This is one reason why I don't program now.

My brother Tim asked me if he could have the back catalogue for his site, and I said sure. I didn't want any money for it, as it would have done nothing whatsoever otherwise, so why not? 

Enjoy!!

** Please note that we cannot answer any queries on this software. Manuals are no longer available. If you find bugs, then i'm afraid it's a tad too late. There is NO support available for these products!!!

This is almost all of the music software I wrote, and very little of it is documented. You'll have to take it as seen. Some of the programs have some really useful general utilities like The Incredible Bulk and the MIDI mixer, which can be used with GM modules. It's worth downloading these. These files are zipped. Getting them into the Atari is not easy, but doubtless you've already figured out how to do it.

Many of these programs work in colour as well as mono. Accessory versions do exist, but beware of using them with a sequencer running. 

Some installers ask for a serial number. Enter 100 , and any name. Ignore the docs referring to registration etc..

Most of the info in the docs seems dated. Well, it is. It may be of some use.

There now follows a brief summary of the programs.


VZ ED is an editor-librarian for the Casio VZ1. It is not difficult if you know the archtechture. Select the function and use the slider for the value. The arrow keys can also be used. The librarian is drag and drop. Sysex dumps are fairly well prompted. The VZ1 is still my mother keyboard and it makes some smashing sounds.

Advanced Four Op is a librarian with a load of sounds for the Yamaha TX81z and its ilk. It will work with most variants. This too is drag and drop. Just clicking a sound sends it to the synth. It's pretty logical. Right clicking the mouse will brign up other things. There is some documentation. I still have my TX81z and I won't part with it.

Yamaha FBO1 Librarian is similar to the Advanced 4 Op., also with masses of sounds. Likewise, there is some documentation. If you got one o' these lil boxes, this will breathe new life into it.

The Korg M1 Toolkit is a librarian for both singles and Combis. There are some extra utilities.

The Quadraverb Toolkit is a similar librarian, with some additional editing features. There's a load of patches too.

The Matrix editor is for the Oberheim Matrix 6 and 1000, which is still available. You know all those modulation matrices everyone keeps banging on about, well here's the original mother of them all. Click on things, and all will be revealed. There's a load of sounds too.

The Juno Editor is for the Alpha Juno (or Al Pacino) 1 and 2. Great little synths, and much much nicer than overblown and nasal Juno 106. There's a librarian too, and a load of sounds.

K4 Editor is natch for the K4 & R. Nice synths. A load of sounds to boot.  This was to be the basis of my universal editor / librarian, but alas, the MIDI sysex format is far from standard. The worst offenders were Sequential and Akai, who drafted the original sysex guidelines.

Trax is a studio manager. A good seller which is still in use. It's a Tracksheet program with other bits added. Some useful utilities too.

Pravda (PRofessional Audio-Visual DAtabase) was supposed to be the successor to Trax. This is a mega program which took 18 months to write. It is VERY powerful, and if you're doing complicated things, then it's almost worth having another Atari just to run this. (Mono only.) Some of the calculators won't be found in any other program, so it's worth having it just for this alone. Unfortunately it ever saw the light of day. Its completion coincided with the falling out of favour of the Atari. There is some documentation too. I don't know if it's complete. It's a pig to get your brain around, but once you've figured it out, you'll see what a powerful program it is.

It's better than a poke in the eye, and it's free.


Quin Rice, Surrey, England. August 1998
