Opcode Galaxy

This is an article culled from archive material, circa 1997.

Galaxy is Opcode's universal librarian. It was one of the first packages available, and is probably one of the most robust. It offers seamless integration with OMS and Vision, although as a compulsive Max user I don't make much use of the latter. It supports parent-child linkage for cut and paste, even for Gearhead/Korg Wavestation wave sequences (although the other packages have probably caught up by now).

The librarian package comes free with Vision; the editor is extra. Editor usability varies from module to module, of course, although generally the editors seem clean and clear. I make heavy use of the Gearhead/E-mu Morpheus editor, and find it quite stable, although I've come across a bug or two.

In general, editor writers are at the mercy of the implementors of the instruments' firmware. Some instruments are so totally f*cked that a decent computer editor is impossible. Some instruments have a good multitimbral specification with multiple edit buffers; others don't. Then again, some of the Galaxy editor modules blatantly ignore the multitimbral capabilities of their instruments, which is extremely irritating when sequencing. I guess the advice is: try before you buy, for any particular editor you're interested in.