Re: What's a good Midi Sequencer

[a_specto@alcor.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

Carrot Balla <d.pimpologist@verizon.net> wrote:

>Hiya!!  Well I just managed to get ahold of an Opcode Midi Translator
>box that plugs in the back of the 8-pin serial port.  Well that knowing
>it will work on any of the Macs that are Post-128K up to the Beige G3
>Tower, and Apple IIGS..
>
>Apple IIGS!!! Hey I happen to have one of them, and I was feeling like
>connecting it up to a nifty Midi network consisting of 3 C=64's (he he
>SID chip) and an Amiga, and it needs a language to talk to the other
>computers with..
>
>So do any of you know of a really good Midi sequencer, that I could
>possibly get as a freeware, maybe.  Of anything, I guess I might be able
>to buy it if it's reasonable.  Anything to keep the Apple scene going.

    You may want to start with synthLAB, which can be found as one 
of the 6 disks included with Apple IIgs System 6.0.x. The sequencer
itself was never completed, though it still offers MIDI support and
(for its time) had _excellent_ wavetable synthesis which could be
controlled through other MIDI devices.

    Years back I had a Casio PMP-300 MIDI keyboard connected up 
and used synthLAB's instrument banks over the built-in synthesizer in
the keyboard--it just sounded so much better! I still occasionally
connect my IIgs to my PC via a Roland SCC-1 card (if I could repair
one of my C64's, I'd love to try it with MIDI using the SID, that'd be
even more fun heh!).

    Diversi-Tune is another worthwhile MIDI sequencer with synthesis
capabilities (somewhat like a mix of wavetable and FM-synth). Though
if your just looking for the most powerful MIDI sequencer, that would
MasterTracks Pro. Note though that it completely ignores the Ensoniq
chip, so you may as well not bother and just use Cakewalk on the PC.
Incidentally, synthLAB and Diversi-Tune are freeware, MasterTracks
though is still "limboware".

Mitchell Spector
a_specto@alcor.concordia.ca