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

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes...

>spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) wrote:
>
>>    I consider Music Composer a MIDI convertor application. It is
>>no different from MIDISurgeon, except that the converting process
>>is more or less transparent to the user. MIDISurgeon has you wait
>>a minute or so as the sequence is converted, Music Composer just
>>takes a short pause. The end result is both programs convert the
>>sequence into MIDIsynth format, which you can listen to or save
>>to disk.
>
>Not exactly.  Yes, Music Composer uses MIDIsynth
>to play the song, but that's no different than a Windows
>player using Windows sound tools or Mac player using
>Mac MIDI tools to play a song.

    Both MIDISurgeon and Music Composer use the MIDIsynth toolset
for playback. Fundamentally they are FUNCTIONALLY IDENTICAL, with
the difference that one is faster at converting MIDI->MIDIsynth.
Neither program does anything to match instruments to the right
tracks, which is not the case with PC/Mac MIDI *players*.

    Neither programs is a MIDI player. Granted once the sequence
measures are converted into a native Apple IIgs music format (in
this case, MIDIsynth) you can click a button and listen to them,
but this is merely a shortcut, saving you the trouble of having
to load up a MIDIsynth player to listen to them (e.g. synthLAB,
Ministrel, MegaBox, WaveLAB, etc).

>MIDISurgeon is different.  The first thing
>MIDISurgeon does is convert the actual song to
>synthLAB format.  synthLAB format is COMPLETELY
>different than simply using MIDIsynth to play a song,
>which is what Music Composer does.

    Um, synthLAB format *is* MIDIsynth. Are you aware synthLAB
is merely a demo application Apple wrote that demostrates the
MIDIsynth toolset? (It was to have been much more, but the
program was never completed).

    What would happen if Dave highly optimized the converting
process in MIDISurgeon so it took as much time as MIDIConvert
or Music Composer? Would MIDISurgeon suddenly be a MIDI player
and not a convertor?

>Look at it another way...Music Composer has to
>EXPORT the song to synthLAB format.

    Wrong, because it already is in that format. You have the
option of whether or not you want it saved to disk (otherwise
it'll just sit there in memory, just like MIDISurgeon).

>>>If THAT's not the definition of a MIDI player/editor, what is?
>>
>>    How about something that lets you double-click on a MIDI file
>>and play it back as easily as if it were in Apple IIgs format. Oh,
>>and as a player, perhaps do its best to play the sequence with the
>>proper instrument/track assignments?
>
>Hrmph, you think all Windows players get it right the
>first time?  I've used both Willow Pond Audio's
>player and Yamaha's and both flub in the wrong
>instrument assignments some of the time.

    Do you know what General MIDI or GS-standard is? If you come
across an old MIDI file that does not conform to these standards
then obviously the instrument assignments won't match. My Roland
SCC-1 conforms to these (actually it is what set these standards)
and I'm fairly certain the Yamaha SYXGS-50 plug-in does too.

>>    Yes, but when it hits the 8th voice or higher, it "steals"
>>lower voices and cuts them out. Notes get clipped prematurely
>>and the result is less than pleasing. MIDIsynth would be more
>>effective if it used 15 voices, but I don't see anyone willing
>>to reprogram the toolset (if it's documented anything like FSTs
>>then it would not even a viable option).
>
>I don't find most 14-16 voice MIDI conversions a probem
>for MIDIsynth.  However, if you fear the idea of "stealing"
>time, what's so great about MIDIsynth?

    MIDIsynth on its own is quite respectable, but it quickly
becomes less than stellar when used to playback MIDI files.
As a native Apple IIgs music program/toolset I think it is
probably the best one written to date. It certainly sounds
better than Music Construction Set, Music Studio, Instant
Music, Diversi-Tune, or when it comes to classical music,
even Soundsmith. With perhaps the exception of Soundsmith,
all those programs are now defunct and no one uses them in
in their programs.

>What makes it superior to something like NoiseTracker?

    Well for one thing NoiseTracker, like just Soundsmith,
is just a 14-track MOD player with most note-effect support
stripped away. In fact, there is no difference between them
except than Noisetracker gets around the 64K DOC-RAM limit.

>If I record all the instrument outputs from a particular
>synthLAB wavebank and directly digitize the output
>to another IIGS and take those samples and make
>them into NoiseTracker instruments, I get exactly the
>same sounds in NoiseTracker only it is guaranteed
>to by definition support 16 voices.
>
>What is so great about MIDIsynth?  What can
>MIDIsynth do that NoiseTracker cannot?

    Heh, have you ever converted a MIDI sequence into MOD format
and listened to it? That should give you a rough idea what the
differences are with going technical. MOD players are even worse
off than MIDIsynth for MIDI playback--far, far worse.

>>>This is really not much of a problem if you have about
>>>14-16 voices, I've found.
>>
>>    That's a strict matter of opinion. :)
>
>I like my conversions!

    I'm no stranger to MIDI->MIDIsynth conversions. Between 1991
and the present I've converted and uploaded probably a few dozen
sequences. There were quite a few I rejected because they would
sound awful with all the note clipping and lack of voices (or in
many cases, the right sounding instruments just not available).

    Most of the ones you'll find of mine floating around were
ones with a low number of voices (or at least where the note
clipping didn't interfere with the way the sequence came out
sounding, though that was rare). These days if I want to hear
a MIDI file I use the best tool for the job, and that is not
the IIgs unfortunately.

>>>Diversi-Tune supports 32 voices and sounds GREAT!
>>
>>    Not quite. Anything you read about Diversi-Tune using that
>>many voices was referring to the fact it used 32 oscillators
>>whereas other programs used 30 oscillators (2 were reserved
>>for timing interrupts, unless you bypassed the firmware).
>>
>>    Other programs would use the oscillators in pairs, while
>>Diversi-Tune utilitized them individually. The high-hat used
>>only only 1 oscillator per note, but the piano and organ each
>>grabbed 4 oscillators per note, so in a case where a piano or
>>organ are used you'd get 8 voices maximum (it depended on the
>>instrument, you could potentially have 32 high-hats voices at
>>once). Any stereo sound always took up 2 oscillators, so you
>>had half the oscillators used for the left channel and half
>>for the right channel. In practice this gave you something
>>close to 16 voices, but usually even less.
>
>I have this song, "Daybreak" on Diversi-Tune that sounds
>amazing.  It sounds like a whole band playing.  I have
>not heard anything even remotely comparable coming
>out of my PC sound card!

    Well despite how it may sound, it is still no where near
having 32 voices which you were boasting. If it is as good as
you claim it is, could you upload a copy to the Ground FTP
site so I could have a listen to it? (not to critize, I do
like to see the IIgs being pushed to its limits and if you
have an example of that, well... :)

>Diversi-Tune is MUCH better than FM synthesis.
>The IIGS can't do FM synthesis, remember?  It
>has no FM voices!  Diversi-Tune is as much
>wavetable synthesis as MIDIsynth, only the samples
>are stored in a proprietary format.

    That is debatable. There are many examples of FM music
that *really* blow Diversi-Tune away. If you have MAME the
arcade emulator on your PC, which can use the OPL3 for
direct music playback (I believe it is hardware compatible
with the YM-2203/3812 used in arcade games) have a listen
to Bubble Bobble, Ghouls'n Ghosts, Lengendary Wings, Robocop,
Jackal, Marble Madness or Gauntlet II as some notiable examples.
If you've ever played these in local arcades you'll get the
point (heh, I'd like to see you do the background music in
Bubble Bobble using Diversi-Tune).

>>    Diversi-Tune is a fantastic and great sounding program,
>>but it is not suitable as a MIDI player. It has almost the
>>same voice limitation as MIDIsynth (though maybe not quite
>>as severe) and lacks instrument variety. You had what, a
>>piano, organ, banjo, harpsichord and percussion?
>
>It had several more, if I remember correctly.

    Okay, I was going from memory there. Let me check that...
Nope, I was right. I just forgot about "electric piano" which
was created by tweaking existing samples (in fact so were
some of the other 5 if I'm not mistaken).

    Of those listed, the only common instruments you'd find
in most MIDI files are piano and percussion (drums/high-hat).
Your average MIDI composition rarely has the others. :)

>However, the most sickening thing I find in PC mid
>files is what I call "instrument overkill."  Too often,
>people try to use too many different instruments.
>It sounds terrible on the PC sound card.  A little
>MIDI Surgery via MIDISurgeon to shrink instrument
>usage down to one to two or so instruments make
>the mids sound A LOT better.  NOT decreasing the
>amount of VOICES, by the way, only combining
>them into fewer instruments.

    Could you give me some specific examples I could listen to?
Obviously you should utilize instrument selection within reason,
too much of anything isn't necessarily good. However, it sounds
like you LIKE having a limited instrument selection on the IIgs,
and that is not a good thing.

>Why not use the "MOD players" like the 16 voice
>NoiseTracker in the first place?  Make a version of
>MIDISurgeon for NoiseTracker, for example.

    That wouldn't be worth the effort, unless you wanted a MIDI
to MOD convertor and as mentioned above, "MOD" is not a very
useful format for MIDI playback.

>I mean, FTA even provided a NoiseTracker TOOL
>for GS/OS.  Why not totally replace MIDISynth
>with NoiseTracker?  NoiseTracker allows practically
>unlimited number of instruments.
>
>WHAT IS SO GREAT ABOUT MIDISYNTH?

    I think I'll let Dave Tribby step in to explain how MIDIsynth
differs from something like NoiseTracker GS, but the bottom line
is it does much more than a simple MOD player. From what I know,
MOD players just take digitized samples and play them back at
varing rates, plus add some effects (NoiseTracker and Soundsmith
supports relatively few however). MODs work great for techno and
rock type songs but terrible for classical pieces. I believe
it has to do with the fact MIDIsynth has all sorts of control
over the waveform's attack, decay, sustain and even how EACH
separate oscillator is treated (you can mix four separate
waveforms to create one instrument). You have full control over
each oscillator, which is not the case with NoiseTracker GS
which just plays back a sample at different frequencies.

>>    Unfortunately, we're stuck with MIDIsynth for now. There
>>is a better alternative open to _you_ at least, and you should
>>take it instead of suffering with MIDIsynth and Diversi-Tune
>>to hear MIDI files. :) Assuming your FM card has a DAC and
>>your running with a P166 or better, download the Yahama Soft
>>Synthesizer S-YXG50 for Windows 95. It emulates a hardware
>>synthesizer with a 2-4 MB instrment patch set. Download the
>>(fully functional) 30 day trial version from this URL:
>>
>>http://www.cyber-bp.or.jp/yamaha/s-yxg50/index_e.html
>>
>>    It is easy to install and it's transparent to the user,
>>you just double-click on MIDI files as you did before when
>>playing through your OPL3/FM chipset. Warning: Once you try
>>this you may never want to use your IIgs again to play MIDI
>>files. ;-)
>
>I actually have the Yamaha Soft Synth, but I don't find
>what's so great about it.

    I find that difficult to believe. Are you *certain* you
have version 50 (SYXGS50) and not version 20, which sounded
quite different (read: awful) from what I've heard. My P166
machine doesn't support MMX, so I'm limited to using the
player at 22 kHz, but it is good enough where it is almost
comparable to my Roland SCC1--that alone says much. For sure
it blows away FM synthesis and *anything* the IIgs Ensoniq
is capable of for MIDI (not just talking about MIDIsynth).

    The minimum requirements for the program are a Pentium
processor running at 166 MHz (MMX is recommended, but not
required). I think you told me you had a "P166+" (6x86)
chipset which is slower than a Pentium-166. Definitely its
internal math coprocessing is equivalent to a Pentium-90
and not one on a Pentium-166, so perhaps your machine isn't
up to speed for running it?

>I really wonder about your tastes versus mine sometimes.

    I'm beginning to feel that myself.

>I find the IIGS an excellent and great sounding music
>machine, yet you seem to can't stand it.

    For a machine produced 12 years ago, the sound built-in
of the Apple IIgs is downright *incredible*. Comparing it
to any other machine produced in the 1980's (and to a point,
even the early 90's) puts it well at the top of the class
for sound capabilities.

    Today however, in 1998, it is no longer state-of-the-art.
In fact, it falls well below the sound standard in many of
the machines being produced today. It's DAC/ADC is limited
to an 8-bit resolution, it has only 64K for its wavetable
synthesis (8-32 *megabytes* or more is not at all uncommon).
I still appreciate the Apple IIgs, the fact that I hang
around comp.sys.apple2 is a testament of that, but I can be
realistic about what it CAN and CANNOT do. As far as being
a sound tool, it does not even begin to compare to current
sound options available today. I think your just taking a
illogical stand defending it because your stuck on brand
loyality. I stopped doing that not too long ago, and I'm
glad I did since it makes me more opened minded to what
tools are out there for certain computing jobs.

>On the flip side, I've fooled around with the MP3 things
>you rave about and I am not impressed.

    Are you sure your listening to MP3, and not MP2?
Even if you are listening to actual MPEG-3 audio, why
not tell me what bit-rate (Kilobytes per second) and
sampling rate (in KHz) they were encoded at? Are you
using WinAmp or some obscure old player?

    Remember that if the song encoded was not digitally
extracted from a compact disc, it was digitized. That
leaves it open to people recording off poor sources
(e.g. old VHS tape, audio cassette) and leaves it up
to them to choose the sampling rate and compression.
A good MP3 is one recorded at 44 KHz and encoded at
a bit-rate of 128K+, 44 KHz, stereo. Mind you, I've
encoded some very decent MP3's recordings off a VHS
tape I rented.

>Digitized sound files on a IIGS sounds better.  Yes, I
>know the IIGS does 8-bit samples but I swear that the MP3
>compression makes music sound worse than taking a 16-bit
>sample to 8-bit ever will.

    Thanks, I haven't had such a good laugh in quite a
while. :-) Seriously, obviously *something* is  wrong
here because that make no sense whatsoever. I'm sorry,
but that statement is simply rubbish. That is like
telling me a crank-shaft phonograph from the 1920's is
superior in sound quality to a current day compact disc
player. Your statement above is just about as ridiculious.

>What's so great about MP3?  Ok, I can see that it
>makes music piracy over the internet possible, but
>the sound is so bad and the digitzed sound on the
>IIGS is so much better.  Music publishers have nothing
>to fear.  I would not be caught dead listening to an
>MP3 recording seriously (like on a real stereo).  A
>good cassette tape even sounds much better.

    Do you even know what your talking about? I really
don't know what the issue is with you or your computer
setup, but I can tell you with great confidence and
certainy, MPEG-3 audio (when done right) is *by far*
superior to analog casette tapes and especially, the
waveforms output by the IIgs's 8-bit DAC.

    MPEG-3 (that is THREE, not two) is CD quality. In
all truthfulness, there is *no* percievable difference
between music played on a CD player and MPEG-3 audio.
Of course I could take a scratchy music recording off
a 30 year old casette tape, digitize it and encode it
in MP3 format, but keep in mind I could do the same
to create a compact disc recording.

    To recap, you claim the Apple IIgs is better for MIDI
playback than current options available today (i.e. Yamaha
Soft Synth), and is superior for digitized audio playback
over MPEG-3 audio. You also once claimed you could not hear
a difference between 16-bit and 8-bit audio, but that is
going a couple of months back. Are you that loyal over to
Apple IIgs as a product that your willing bend reality and
pretend it's better? When I think back, I used to be alot
like that myself. Heh, I used to believe the IIgs was
superior in every way to the Amiga, or that an accelerated
IIgs was equal to a 386 or even 486 in speed. I once even
argued with someone, believing MIDIsynth was superior to a
Roland SCC-1 (which I hadn't heard at that time, but just
told myself there couldn't be anything better). It is OKAY
to like the Apple IIgs and have a fondness for it (I certainly
still do) but don't let yourself become so obsessed by it
that you start believing things that aren't true. I'm not
trying to flame you, but much of what you've stated is just
absurd, and I can think of no reason for it other than the
fact you seem to be overly loyal to the IIgs.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca