Re: Wow, My GS made that noise?????

[pubpc1@library.ucla.edu]

James Poore wrote:
> In a previous article, spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) says:
> >    I was just playing around with different combinations of existing
> >instruments, though I have thought of maybe taking a shot at creating
> >a good saxophone or guitar (unfortunately I know they won't fit into
> >the above bank, unless I removed the piano and drums. The 64K of DOC
> >RAM really is a major barrier). I figured why should Diversi-Tune be
> >the only program that can play jazz music. :)
> 
> I have tried and/or been waiting patiently for a good sax (Dont we all
> like good sax?)  I have come sorta close with a sax but its not 'there' yet.
> Mebbe I need to hang out in sleazy jazz clubs for inspiration :)
> 
> Jim

Here's the way I get around the 64K barrier.  Just use NoiseTracker.
The idea is very simple.  Connect SoundSmith to a second MIDI source
(eg. another GS, a Mac, or a PC) and "input" the MIDI data into
SoundSmith.  Save the SoundSmith file.  Use NoiseTracker to inport
the SoundSmith song into RAM based tracks.  Go to your favorite
sound digitizer program and record the instruments as they should
sound, one at a time, using as much RAM as you need.  Go back to
NoiseTracker and load and assign each of the new instruments.

In practice, I've found this method sounds much more realistic than
synthLab.  The major weakness of NoiseTracker is that it does a
simple frequency shift to "make" the different notes.  If you want
to incease quality even more, you should record different "ranges"
of notes for each instrument.  One note per octave, for example.
The disadvantage is that this requires some editing, but the
finished product sounds great.

NoiseTracker 2.0 has much better editing facilities that the P8
versions, but the P8 versions are less buggy and play cleaner.
It is best to use the 2.0 version to do the editing but the p8
versions for actual playback and instrument manipulation.

After hearing some PC sound cards play, I've concluded that the
64K limit in synthLab accounts for more of the difference in
quality than the 8-bit wavetable.  NoiseTracker converted music
sounds _much_ more close to realistic playback than synthLab.

On the other hand, I've ran synthLab on XGS on a PC with a
wavetable card and found that synthLab on the fake GS has a
noticeably improved quality.  In fact, the demo Mozart Sonata
and Capri sequences sound exactly (to my ears) as MIDI music
sound native to the PC sound card.  Will someone explain _this_
paradox to me?

Finally, anyone claiming that present emulators like XGS can
replace a real GS are lying through their teeth.  The PC version
slowed a 200MHz Pentium to an effective speed of an unaccelerated
GS.  I don't care if you run a CPU speed program and see 20MHz,
that's a fake speed.  It is kind of fun, though, to have synthLab
as a background music player on a PC.  :)

-Scott G.