Re: APPLE 2GS Sound

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

Mich' <leechi@club-internet.fr> wrote:

>I'm looking for some Apple 2GS music in MP3 (real sound from Apple2GS
>synthetizer I don't want any Midi remix) because I would like to ear
>the kind of sound it can produce since I read that there are 32 audio
>channels and that Bob "SID" Yannes designed this chip.

    I began such a project several years back. I digitally recorded
live output from from my _real_ Apple IIgs, then compressed the rather
large waveforms into MP3 format (128Kbps, 44 kHz) to save space.
Taking a quick peek on my hardrive, I managed to MP3 encode all
musical tracks from Zany Golf, The Immortal and most of the Cinemaware
titles. Also several of the Sierra adventure games and a handful of
miscellaneous musical samplings from popular games, demos and stand
alone music programs. 

    Unfortunately at the time I used a Pro AudioSpectrum-16 board to
do the recordings, which was decent for its time, but pretty weak and
flat sounding compared to the ADC on-board the SoundBlaster Live.
I'd really like to go back and re-record these on the SBLive, though
first I'll need to get ahold of a male-to-male 1/8" phono cable.

>Even if it is a SID sound type I think it could be very cool playing
>it in 32 channels ! :^) 
>But in fact I think it is surely better sound quality than C64 SID ! 

    Well the SID had three sound channels (utilitizing preset
waveforms) with one white noise generator. The IIgs had an Ensoniq
5503 DOC, which by contrast had 32 oscillators (could be played
separately or paired together) to play unlimited waveform varieties,
based on 8-bit analog sound samples. It was wavetable synthesis.
For quite a time the Apple IIGS had the most powerful built-in music
and sound capabilities of any computer on the market.

    To its credit though, the SID had more control over tweaking those
preset waveforms than any other chip of its kind (i.e. AY-3-8913). You
could emulate it on the Ensoniq though, which technically was much
more powerful. Jimmy Huey proved that when porting California Games
over to the IIgs.

>So does anyone know a web site where I could find Apple 2GS MP3 
>recorded music ?

    If you're using WinAmp, download this plug-in which will allow you
to directly play certain Apple IIgs music formats on your PC: 
    
http://home.cfl.rr.com/ischmidt/apps/mtplug10.zip

    Then go here to download some IIgs music to listen to (the in-game
music scores from "SpaceFox" are highly recommended if you want to get
a feel for what the IIgs could do). They're not MP3's of course, but
they translate quite well played through the above PC player.

http://home.cfl.rr.com/ischmidt/song1.html


Mitchell Spector
a_specto@alcor.concordia.ca