Re: IIGS Midi

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

In article edhel@ bigfoot.com (Edhel Iaur, Esq.) writes...

>On Sat, 25 Oct 1997 23:38:16 -0400, rigby@ptd.net (Jon H.) wrote:
>
>>Are there any programs for the IIGS that will let me play MIDI files that I
>>get from the web?  I download them on a Mac, and that can read IIGS disks,
>>so I do have a way of getting them from the Mac to the GS.  I just need to
>>know if there  is any GS software that will let you do this.
>
>Apple's SynthLAB may be necessary for many solutions.  If you go to
>http://liquefy.isca.uiowa.edu/8/ground, and search for "midi", you
>find several utils that may help.

    synthLAB (utilitizing MIDIsynth) is currently the only solution for
playing MIDI files on an Apple IIgs, at least with respectable results. 
The only alternatives would be Diversi-Tune, which has FM-synthesis like
sound quality, or Soundsmith, which is basically a crippled MOD player.
Neither are what I would consider practical for the purpose.

>I KNOW I've done the conversion before, but they DID lose something in
>the translation...

    That is an understatement. :) First off if the MIDI sequence in
question exceeds 7 voices you'll get clipped or completely missing
notes (many MIDI sequences out there use as many as 32 voices). The
other problem is lack of memory to load instrument patches into,
that being only 64K. To give you an idea of how inadequate this is,
I used to have a Gravis UltraSound on my PC with 1 MB for patches
and I found _that_ not decent enough (FYI: the GUS is basically the
next generation version the Ensoniq found in the GS). Quite often
you'll find you won't have the right instrument to assign to each
track, or even something relatively close sounding.

    Add to that the Ensoniq uses 8-bit resolution samples, many of
which are sampled at low frequencies and very small in size (in
order to squeeze them into the 64K of DOC-RAM space). Modern MIDI
playing devices also add effects like reverb and chorus, emulating
the affect of being in a large and open concert hall (quite neat
for piano music). In the end, even if you have something with a
low number of voices and instruments, it will still sound very
flat, tinny and sour compared with modern PC sound cards.

>MOD files usually play perfectly, with very little difference, so if
>your Mac has a good MIDI -> MOD converter, you're golden...

    MODs sound very flat and computer synthesized compared with
MIDI files (unless your comparing directly against an FM-based
sound card or something not much better, such as a Macintosh
trying to do software mixing on a slow 68K machine or Apple IIgs
with the limitations I've outlined above).

    I know there are MIDI->MOD converters available for both
the Macintosh and PC, but the results are pretty awful to say
the least (I know from experience). The best analogy I can
come up with if you had a group professional musicians given a 
child's plastic toy-drum, toy-piano and toy trumpet to play 
classical music. Sure, you might recognize the tune through all 
that, but the overall results would be pretty laughable (much 
like trying to play a MIDI sequences through MOD format ;-).

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca