Tunafish Review: Low-cost Sequencer software

[mrblitz]

Using Cubase LE 4, I could not for the life of me figure out how to activate the piano roll VSTi editor that a friend of mine demonstrated on his DAW, which was running Cubase 3SX.

The piano roll editor might be in Cubase LE 4, but not being able to find it; I looked for a low-cost sequencing app which would feature VSTi hosting.

Having previously used the free, Hammerhead software for drum tracking (and being happy with it), I stumbled upon a few other programs by the same author, Bram Bos.

Moonfish is a 3-channel sequencer. Tuareg could perhaps be called a sampler first, and sequencer 2nd.

The Tunafish sequencer software program is the VSTi host / piano roll editor that I was looking for. For a $30 activation, it lets me create VSTi output for loading as audio into Cubase.

The piano-roll editor can be kind of tedious, but with the available cutting and pasting capabilities, not overly trying.

Probably the quirkiest, most annoying thing about Tunafish is the 'song position slider.' It seems that Tunafish likes to add 100+ measures to a given song, and will often set itself at the very end, so there is - here and there - some tedious scrolling to get to the part of the song you want to see.

Other than the quirkiness of that one slider software control, the program runs intuitively. Actually, all of the software mentioned here from Bram Bos - Hammerhead, Moonfish, Tuareg, and Tunafish - is easy to 'dive into and start working with' immediately.

Tunafish does 'crash' once in awhile (just disappears off of the screen). Upon reloading, the work is usually saved in a 'rescue file.' It is stable enough that the crashes can be fairly easily worked around. The best way to avoid crashes is to have no other apps loaded, and to avoid undue 'VSTi swapping' (unloading and loading multiple VSTi in search of that perfect 'timbre'.)

Overall, if you don't have a midi keyboard (or any other midi input device), and are comfortable working with a piano roll editor, Tunafish provides some fairly powerful capabilities for creating drum and synth parts. The reason I think it's a win is because it's only $30.

Anyway, it was the software piece I was looking for.

Now, I can create drum and synth lines, export them into .wav; then load them into Cubase. From there I can add more tracks; vocals and guitars.

Tunafish is supposed to support Asio, but apparently only through the sound card, and not a USB device such as this Lambda. I'd love to be mistaken in that, and find a way to record through the Lambda into Tunafish, but don't see it (even if it's there).

I'm running a Pentium 4 1.8ghz, with 1gb of RAM; and have been able to do some fairly involved, multi-part songs in Tunafish without having to resort to track freezing to save computer resources.

That's the story of how one home recording maven brought VSTi sounds into Cubase LE 4; Tunafish.

[mrblitz]

I found the piano roll editor in Cubase. ay yai yai

Now, to figure out which 'piano roll editor' is easier to use - Tunafish or Cubase.

For $30 though; Tunafish is not a bad tool to have on hand. The Tuareg for $20 is probably well worth the money, too.

I don't know what happened to Bram Bos. Apparently, Steinberg hired him to make 'beatbox' or somesuch based off of the free Hammerhead software drum machine. That was in 2001 or somesuch.

From what I can tell, the Beatbox thing didn't pan out - or they renamed it or something. Tunafish appears to be post-Steinberg.

Tunafish hasn't been updated since 2007 or 8.

Anyway, this guy - Bram Bos - is a good programmer. Watch for anything new he might ever make.

If Tunafish would do recording of guitar/mic through an ASIO device, I might just use it as standalone. As it is, without an apparent record function for instruments/mics, other software such as Cubase is required for that; so Tunafish remains an adjunct program, but not a catch-all; real slick little sequencer with midi capability, but no audio recording.