Re: Is there a MIDI player for Apple 2 GS ?

[CUTjefbla@bconnex.net (Jeff Blakeney)]

On 20 Nov 1998 22:49 EDT, spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)
wrote:

>    No, they read the MIDI data and then pass it on to either
>a hardware or software based synthesizer. There is no "format"
>it has to be converted into which LIMITS THE NUMBER OF VOICES
>OR INSTRUMENT SELECTION, it is up to the synthesizer to play
>the sequence. The number of voices, selection of instruments,
>support of General Standard or General MIDI then depends on
>the HARDWARE RECEIVING AND PLAYING IT, not a music program.

The way I look at it is "MIDI Players" and "MIDI Convertors" are black
boxes.  With a "MIDI Player" you input a MIDI file and get music out.
With a "MIDI Convertor" you input a MIDI file and get a new file out.
What happens inside those black boxes is totally irrelevant.

Remember that even though you don't really see it as clearly with a
Windows MIDI player, there is still some conversion of the data going
on.  After all, either the software or hardware must take the
instrument names in the MIDI file and convert them into actual
instruments that can be played by the hardware.  Try playing a MIDI
file with no instruments some time and listen to the result.  :-)

In Windows, any conversion that needs to take place to play a MIDI
file is done by the MIDI player software, the driver software or the
hardware.  It isn't a topic that is brought up much most likely due to
the fact that most Windows users don't really learn as much about
their computers as us Apple II users.

There can also be some "artificial" limits to the playback depending
on the sound hardware you are using in your Windows machine.  Have you
ever compared the output from a MIDI file played through an Adlib card
to the output from the same MIDI file played through a SoundBlaster
AWE 64?  If there were no conversion of the MIDI data into something
usable by the hardware they should sound close to the same, excluding
any differences in the quality of the audio amps and such.  However,
you will find that the AWE 64 sounds vastly better.  How could this be
happenning if there wasn't some kind of fiddling with the MIDI file
data?

Although, I will agree that MIDI files played through MIDISynth don't
always sound the greatest and I'd like to see someone produce
something better.  There isn't much stopping someone from using the
Sound Tools instead of the MIDISynth Tools to create a 15 voice,
unlimited sample size, MIDI Player for the IIgs.

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