Re: Release of DMS Drummer: A Percussion Sequencer for the Apple II

["Marc S. Ressl" <mressl@gmail.com>]

On Nov 29, 11:33 pm, "Michael J. Mahon" <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:
> With inspiration and musical mentoring provided by Seth Sternberger
> of _8-Bit Weapon_, I've impemented a percussion sequencer/synthesizer
> for the Apple II.
>
> It allows a user to create sequences as long as 255 patterns, where
> each pattern is one of a set of 16 musical measures. Within each of
> these patterns, any one of 8 percussive voices can be played at any
> 1/16th note boundary.  In addition, the "pitch" for playing back the
> percussion sample can be specified, which is useful for pitched drums,
> like tom-toms.
>
> Like RT.SYNTH (which Seth also offers as DMS Synthesizer) DMS Drummer
> uses the DAC522 5-bit 22kHz pulse-width-modulation wavetable synthesizer
> engine, driven by a sequencer that runs in real time.  DAC522 represents
> "silence" as pairs of 6 cycle pulses spaced 46 cycles apart, regardless
> of whatever the code is doing--which subroutine it's calling or which
> branch path it's taking.  Executing "branchy" code while maintaining
> a constant stream of evenly spaced pulses is pretty tricky, but it must
> be done if the sequencer is to keep silent except for the desired
> sounds.
>
> Seth is offering the full version on his website:
>    http://www.8bitweapon.com/store.htm
> for $15, but the demo version (downloadable both from my website
> and his) is free for you to play with!  It is limited to 8 distinct
> programmable patterns and the Save function is disabled.
>
> Listen to the sample song, created by Seth, on either of our websites
> to hear the realistic rhythm line that an 8-bit Apple II can produce!
> The melody and bass lines are being played on RT.SYNTH, so the only
> non-Apple II-produced sounds are the "explosions" (which could also
> have been played by SOUND.EDITOR on an Apple II!).
>
> -michael
>
> DMS Drummer for more rhythmic Apple II computing!
> Home page:  http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/
>
> "The wastebasket is our most important design
> tool--and it's seriously underused."

My hats off to you!

Finally I have an argument against the C64 people :-DDD.

Marc.-