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:
>
>>In article gavp@gis.net writes...
>>
>>>Is there a MIDI player for Apple 2 GS ?
>>
>>    No, not really. There are however a handful of programs which
>>will convert MIDI files into a native Apple IIgs music format and
>>then attempt to play them back. The most feasible music format for
>>that job is called "MIDIsynth"--a toolset included with System 6.
>>Anyone who's used Apple's synthLAB program is familar with it.
>
>Then what do you call Music Composer?  It simply LOADS
>the MIDI (.mid) file, allows you to play it, even edit it, and
>allows you to save back as a .mid file playable on a Windows
>PC unit.

    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.

>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?

>>    MIDIsynth is rather limited though, even though it is using
>>wavetable synthesis. It can only handle up to 7 voices (lots of
>>MIDI's have up to 32 or more) and there is only 64K of space in
>>TOTAL for instrument patch sets. Forget about support for GM/GS
>>MIDI. Some people have used alternatives to MIDIsynth, but it
>
>Well actually I've converted songs with many more than
>seven voices.  The 4 oscillator voices of MIDI synth are
>real overkill.  You can have more than 7 voices easily, it
>is just that MIDIsynth will steal time from each 4 oscillator
>unit to generate the "over 7" voices.

    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).

>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. :)

>>often sounds much worse (e.g. Diversi-Tune, which is similar to
>>FM-synthesis or Soundsmith, which is a 14-track MOD player). The
>
>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.

>It is nothing like FM-synthesis.  It is just that the waveforms
>are defined rather than loaded as a separate wavebank
>file.

    As I recall, its high-hats and drums sounded like white
noise generators, and the organ and pianos sounded quite
similar to FM versions (especially if you hit high piano
notes). I spoke to Bill Basham about a year or two ago,
and he himself described his program as having a "very
rich, kind of FM sound". :)

>I actually like the sound better than my OPL3 equipped
>PC sound card AND MIDIsynth.  The only reason I
>don't use it more is because MIDIsynth is more of the
>standard.  This is a real shame...DiversiTune is great!

    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?

>>7 voice limit of MIDIsynth is the real crippling though, so much
>>so, I've found a crummy OPL3 (FM based) card in my PC can do a
>>better job at supporting MIDI playback. At least it has 20 voices
>>and can simulate very decent bass and bell-like instruments.
>
>I wouldn't go this far.  I've done conversions with songs
>having 14-16 voices.  The results, played with MIDIsynth,
>still sound significantly better than the original .mid files
>played through my FM (OPL3) sound card.  But that's
>to be expected...my PC sound card costs less than $20 USD.

    I didn't necessarily say it sounded better, just that
it is much better supported. With the OPL3 on the PC you
get 20 voices and General MIDI compatibility. While it may
sound very synthy and cheesy, its does its best to accurately
match real instruments with FM based ones (on the GS there
are only a handful of instruments, and *very* few available
at once). Someone _could_ have written a IIgs MIDI player
that would use more voices and swap instruments in and out
on the fly (from a 256K-1MB set of patches or so) much
like MOD players have done. It would probably eat almost
all available CPU time and require a very fast accelerator
card, but it would be doable. Like most things on the IIgs,
the potential is there, but the support isn't.

    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. ;-)

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca