Hybrid Arts
Atari 8-bit
MIDITrack and MIDIMate
Founded by Robert Moore, the often overlooked Hybrid Arts, Inc's (HAI) were one of the MIDI and audio heavy weights for Atari, along with arguably Steinberg and C-Lab / Emagic. It was a company of many firsts, whose beginnings emanated from 1983, operating out of Los Angeles, California. As attested by Bob himself, among HAI's groundbreaking first products were MIDITrack and MIDIMate, first demonstrated in October of 1983 on an Atari 800 connected to a Sequential Circuits Prophet 600. HAI again demonstrated MIDITrack and MIDIMate in January 1984 at Winter NAMM, a year after MIDI first fully debuted in January 1983 with a Sequential Circuits Prophet 600, communicating to a Roland Jupiter 6 over a certain 5 pin cable.
Developed by Dave Smith, the Prophet 600 was the first ever MIDI product, with the MIDI standard in its infancy, Dave Smith and the MMA soldiered on, eventually for the standard to be officially adopted as MIDI 1.0 circa August of 1983.
MIDITrack then, can lay claim to being the very first commercial MIDI based software application, and consequently the first software MIDI sequencer, often forgotten and certainly dismissed due to the success of Steinberg's own Pro-16. MIDIMate in turn can lay claim to being the first MIDI hardware peripheral released for any computer, although both MIDITrack and MIDIMate would have competition from Sequential Circuits' own Model 64, and yes Steinberg Pro-16.
MIDITrack was followed up with both MIDITrack II in 1984, and MIDITrack III in 1986, 48K, 64K and 128K RAM versions respectively.
HAI continued with a host of products, some of which are highlighted below.
MIDIPatch
Not to catalogue every product, another programme of note was MIDIPatch, released in 1985 as a dedicated librarian for the Yamaha DX7, DX9, TX816, as well as Casio CZ-101, 1000 synthesisers. MIDIPatch was similarly available for the Commodore 64 and IBM PC compatibles.
DX-Editor
DX-Editor was released in 1986, and as its name suggests was an editor for the Yamaha DX7 and TX series of synths. It was an 8-bit cut down version of DX-Droid. It had editing functions but came without the patch creation module of DX-Droid. DX-Editor was also released for the Atari ST.
GenPatch
GenPatch is an abbreviation of 'Generic Patch' and was one of, if not the first universal librarian(s) for any computer when it was released on the 8-bit Atari's in 1986. In the same year GenPatch was also released for the ever MIDI capable Atari ST.
Atari ST
Softly, Softly!
DX-Droid / Android
HAI released a series of software programmes during 1986 for the Atari ST. The first of which was DX-Droid, the first MIDI application ever released for the Atari ST. However given a certain movie franchise '...in a galaxy far, far away...' were laying claim to the 'droid' trademark, it was promptly renamed to DX-Android. It was of course a Yamaha DX and TX series editor and librarian.
DX-Editor
DX-Editor, similarly released in '86 like the 8-bit Atari version was essentially a cut down version of DX-Droid, without the patch creation module. In fact early versions came with the DX-Droid manual yet to be updated.
CZ-Android
Hybrid Arts' CZ-Android came onto the market in late 1986, it was the sister product to DX-Android, and similarly was an editor and librarian for the Casio CZ series synthesisers.
GenPatch ST
GenPatch ST, the ST version of the universal librarian from the Atari 8-bit machines conceived in '86, and likely the first universal librarian for the ST, despite Pixel Publishing's claims Super Librarian was the first, not copyrighted until 1989. It was written by John Eidsvoog, who would later in 1988 form CodeHead Technologies. His Atari MIDI wares would eventually be released as freeware.
EZ-Track
EZ-Track was an introductory 20 track MIDI sequencer if you will, conceived in 1986 with variations such as EZ-Track Plus. This was the first sequencer I ever used, courtesy of the music studios at my school.
SMPTETrack and SyncTrack (MIDITrack)
The 60 track ST version of the MIDITrack series, with its lineage from the Atari 8-bit sequencer it came in two versions, SMPTETrack and SyncTrack. Both released circa 1987, they came with relevant hardware peripherals respectively for either tape synchronisation only, or SMPTE sync from the SMPTE Sync Box, SMPTEmate or SMPTEmate Plus hardware for example.
Later versions saw SyncTrack incorporated into SMPTETrack, such as SMPTETrack Gold which allowed tape and SMPTE synchronisation in one package, meaning SyncTrack as a separate product was no more.
EZ-Score Plus
EZ-Score Plus was the first scoring, notation printing programme for all of the Hybrid Arts line of MIDI sequencers. Released circa 1987.
EditTrack
Released in 1989, EditTrack was essentially SMPTETrack without any sync box and SMPTE capability.
GenEdit
GenEdit is an abbreviation of 'Generic Patch Editor'. It can be seen as the sister programme to GenPatch, and is GenPatch but with patch editing capabilities, a universal MIDI editor and librarian conceived in 1989. GenEdit ended as a freeware release at version 2.02.
Hard at Work
There were many more software offerings from Hybrid Arts, however they also released a number of interesting hardware options for the ST series, the first of which were their Sync boxes.
Hybrid Arts SMPTE Sync Box, SMPTEmate and SMPTEmate Plus
The SMPTE Sync Box first appeared in '87 along as a companion to HAI's SMPTETrack sequencer. These units of course allowed SMPTE sync, yet came in a few versions. As mentioned the first iteration units appear to be referred to as simply the SMPTE Sync Box, thereafter the SMPTEMate, followed by the SMPTEMate Plus.
SMPTEMate Plus
Hybrid Arts MIDIPlexer
The Hybrid Arts MIDIPlexer is believed to have been released around 1988. It is a MIDI expander which provides 1 extra MIDI In, and 3 extra MIDI Outs, giving a total of 2 MIDI Ins and 4 MIDI Outs on your Atari. Its primary use is with Hybrid Arts own sequencers such as the MIDITrack series.
ADAP II Sound Cube
Hybrid Arts ADAP II
The ADAP II followed in 1989 with the ADAP II Sound Cube, a pioneer of professional D2D / HD recording. Following the Sound Cube, there were prototypes called the ADAP II Portable (see image above) which led to HAI's Digital Master. More can be read here.
Hybrid Arts Digital Master
Lo and behold the Digital Master, essentially an 'official' version of the ADAP II Portable released circa 1991. In essence this is an ADAP III in all but name. Further reading can be found here.
Digital F/X Digital Master Expanded
Not released by Hybrid Arts, however the Digital Master Expanded was a continuation of the Hybrid Arts Digital Master. Also known as the DM-EX 4, it was conceived around 1992 by HAI, and was continued after Hybrid Arts was acquired by a company called Digital F/X. In essence it is an ADAP IV, more of which can be read here.
This article is not a complete history, nor is it a complete catalogue of HAI's products for the Atari platform. It merely serves to highlight what I consider are the more interesting products which were available from the same for nostalgic and tributary purposes.
© 2020 Atari TOSser. 'All rights reserved' - written content
Old Hybrid Arts and Digital F/X logos and marketing materials are a trademark of the once Hybrid Arts Inc. and Digital F/X Inc. respectively