Re: IIGS Music Software

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

Tony Allen <allen.tony@sk.sympatico.ca> wrote:

>Hello!
>
>I have been given a IIGS (ROM3) with MIDI interface, 3.5 and 5.25 disk
>drives.  While I have quite a lot of experience with all Apple II's (II,
>II+, IIe, and IIGS) I have no software or documentation for accessing
>the Ensoniq sound chip in the IIGS.  I'd like to put the computer to
>work as a programmable metronome (capable of pre-set tempo changes
>during playback) or as a play-along "Band-in-a-Box" (using any built-in
>Ensoniqu sound patch library or MIDI out to an external synth.)
>
>I'd be grateful for any software and info you can provide!
>
>Thanks in advance,
>Tony Allen in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

For starters, find a full set of System 6.0.1 disks for the IIGS and
study the program synthLAB one one of the disks.  It should be
able to do all of the above.

The editing functions of this program are not great but it is free
from Apple (original intended as a demonstration to software
developers).  synthLAB sequences can play out through MIDI
and MIDI can be recorded as synthLAB sequences.  synthLAB
can also play through internal and external synthesizers at the
same time.

Now if you wanted to really get into IIGS music, at one time
the IIGS has a full suite of professional music software that
included Pyware's Music Writer for notation and Master
Tracks for sequencing.  Actually, the IIGS and Amiga versions
of these programs came out before the Macintosh versions.
Now only the Mac vesions remain.

Anyway, start out with synthLAB and if you can, track down
Music Writer and Master Tracks later.

Should you want to use the IIGS as intended, Alltech has all
the hardware you need (bump the memory up to 4MB at
least or a full 8MB and add a hard disk drive).  A Focus hard
drive and a Sirius memory card would be great.  A CPU
accelerator card would help too.

Now I know some people think money in old hardware but to
me it is fun maxing out old systems.  I do this with my
Socket 7 systems too and Athlon and P4 users think I am
crazy.