Re: Question on IIGS music/sound files

[Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com>]

Rich Hare <Rich113JL@gmail.com> wrote:

>I have a huge amount of sound files that I'd like to listen to; mods, 
>rSounds, binary sound files, etc., but I can't seem to get them to play. 

    Music synthesis was one of my main interests on the Apple IIGS,
so I thought I'd chime in with some recommendations and advice.
In terms of listening, I'd suggest a stereo card attached to a pair of
amplified speakers and subwoofer. Or a good pair of headphones.

    In terms of applications, there were several music formats created
over the years but most of them were abandoned. The two formats 
that became the defecto standard were: Soundsmith and MIDIsynth.
For that reason you'll find some applications could play them both,
even within the Finder, by simply double-clicking them. The New
Desk Accessory (NDA) called "MegaBox" was one. Here is a
download link:

http://www.club.cc.cmu.edu/~rbraun/files/a2/megabox30.shk

>  I've got more than a dozen sound applications (Soundsmith Modzap 
>NoiseTracker etc.) and they play some of the sounds but not others.

    For MOD playback (which are essentially universal music files that
will play on any era computer with enough horse power) I would only
recommend shellPlay or BeatBox. The latter program supported MED
and 8-voice MOD's but had cosmetic display glitches on the ROM 3.
Ninjaforce's "DeskPlay" NDA gave shellPlay a GUI and allowed you 
to playback MODs within the Finder. Here is a download link:

http://www.ninjaforce.com/downloads/Deskplay.shk

    So then, with MegaBox and DeskPlay NDA's installed, you'll
be able to play MIDIsynth (i.e. synthLAB), Soundsmith and MOD
format, either from within the Finder desktop or any other software
you're running. That covers all the mainstream formats right there.

    To playback digital audio clips and recordings, my preference
was Ian Schmidt's Audio Zap 2.0. If it was digital audio, even from
another machine, it could open and play it.

    For MIDI format, unfortunately no one ever wrote software to
playback directly. You had to convert the measures into another
format (MIDIsynth generally) and manually assign instrument
patches. MIDI Surgeon was a popular tool for that. I converted
a few dozen MIDI sequences into MIDsynth format, tweaking
tracks and assigning instruments. In one case I even created 
my own custom instrument banks (I disliked the piano that 
came with MIDIsynth so I created my own). Here's an example 
of one of my pieces I posted to YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxzH5kdejAA

>Obviously I don't know what I'm doing, soundwise.  I've read the FAQ's 
>and the Apple II Sound & Music file (R015SNDNMUS.txt), but it seems like 
>this is more advanced than I can follow, just yet.
>
>I don't want to CREATE music; just group what I have and listen to it.
>
>Is there a primer anywhere (book perhaps?) that describes each of the 
>sound file types and lists the application(s) that go with each?

    Generally if you select a music file and choose "Icon Info" 
(Apple-I) within the System 6.0.1 Finder, it will identify the 
application that the music file is associated with.

    There were many other IIGS music formats that were abandoned
over the years, but worth having a listen to. In most cases you'll
need the original application to listen to song files....

- Music Construction Set GS

Probably the very first music program written for the GS. While it 
only supported two musical instruments per song (still up to 15 
voices however) it had a *very* cool tonal quality to it. A local
fellow named Francois Labelle sent me a disk filled with many 
well-known classical piano pieces he painstakingly put in by
hand. Worth a listen, they were professionally done. There was
also the much richer sounding Deluxe Music Construction Set
format, but it was never released and only two games used it
on the GS.

- Music Studio

Very similar to Music Construction Set, however the music 
quality was pretty mediocre. I only mention it because there
were so many public domain songs released in this format.
Some people created custom  instrument banks that really 
pushed the format to new levels, the best example I remember
is a rendition of "Every Breath You Take" by the Police.

- Instant Music

The sound quality was somewhere between the above two
programs. It had several music disks available for purchase
at the time, some people even composed their own. What
made it fun was you could "music doodle". No musical
experience was necessary....it'd essentially auto-tune you
in. There was a follow up called Instant Synthesizer, but
I never explored it much, if at all.

- Jam Session

Very much like Instant Music, with the concept of music
doodling. Just load the songs and listen, but if you tapped
keys on the keyboard it will let you play along. It was
auto-tuned as well, no musical background experience
was required. I still find Instant Music and Jam Session
fun to this day....too bad I haven't seen anything quite 
like them on the PC, Mac or portable gadets.

- Diversi-Tune

Another once popular format. It supported 32 voices 
however at a cost of thinner sounding instruments.
I remember it being described (possibly by Bill Basham
himself when I was chatting with him?) as a very rich
sounding FM music. There were several song disks
produced for it, as well as people writing their own
compositions. It was most remembered for being an
early computer Karaoke (follow the bouncing ball!).
It was so well done, I actually had my family gathered
around the GS singing some 22 years ago. :)

There were several others I'm likely forgetting, though
I'll chime in again if I remember them.

Mitchell Spector