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:
>>
>>    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).
>
>This is incorrect.  Music Composer has its own internal format.
>Music saved as Music Composer sequences CANNOT be
>double-clicked from Finder and played using Ministrel or
>MegaBox.
>
>Again, (and I actually went back and checked) you must
>EXPORT TO SYNTHLAB in order to generate something
>synthLAB can play when using Music composer.  You
>are wrong, Mitch.  MIDIsynth does not equal synthLAB.
>MIDIsynth is a sound TOOL.  synthLAB is a player and
>has its own internal format, just like Music Composer
>does.

[lots of redundency in arguement snipped]

    Your obscuring the issue here. All the programs mentioned
above use the MIDIsynth toolset (same synthesizer application
player, same instrument bank configuration and same waveform).
You convert the MIDI file and regardless of what special file
format it is saved in, internally it will be 100% *IDENTICAL*
since the same data is sent to the MIDIsynth toolset. There is
no difference in how it will sound, it is the same sequence
played under different programs.

    The process may appear transparent, but your missing the
point. All three programs *CONVERT* MIDI sequences so that
they can be handled and played by MIDIsynth. Is there any
difference between they way they come out sounding? No.

    In order to qualify as a MIDI player it must do more than
simply just translate the note information into an Apple IIgs
music format (forget about HOW it is saved, just remember it
is played by MIDIsynth and that is the bottom line). To be a
player it has to make an effort to match instruments to the
ones the sequence calls for. If a saxaphone, general MIDI drums,
piano, guitar, trumpet and timpani are required, it had better
load up those patches and then match them to the right tracks.

>Actually, I disagree.  I think Diversi-Tune does classical
>better and NoiseTracker with the right samples also
>does it better.

    I'd question that. Where are the strings, oboe, brass
section, clarinet, timpani, flute, harp in Diversi-Tune?
You cannot load in new instrument patches so that leaves
you a limited selection of classic pieces that will sound
decent (and in the case of Diversi-Tune's piano, organ
and harpsichord, they pale in sound quality compared to
the same instruments available in MIDIsynth).

    Soundsmith isn't as flexible as MIDIsynth, go listen
to a violin under it (or listen to one in a MOD) and go
compare it with a violin in MIDIsynth (on the synthLAB
disk, "Midsummer.seq" is a good example, try and play
that on Soundsmith). Listen to the way it is sustained
and how it decays.

>>    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.
>
>That's because (at least with the programs I've used) the
>converter generates an Amiga Protracker MOD.  Of
>course that's going to sound bad...you've just mashed
>the MIDI into a 4 voice format.
>
>I'm saying, why not use GS NoiseTracker's 15 voice
>format.

    It has nothing to do with the number of voices. MOD players
(at least early ones which support relatively few effects, such
as Soundsmith) do not have very much control over instruments
and how they're played--it just turns samples on/off and at
varying rates. MOD format is *awful* for MIDI playback, whether
you have 4 or 40 voices.

>First, read above.  I never claimed "it has 32 voices.

"Diversi-Tune supports 32 voices and sounds GREAT!"

>>    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).
>
>I've played MAME (yuck, what's wrong with the graphics?
>They look a lot worse than XGS and you know I don't like
>XGS).  I am not impressed.

    You should have MAME emulate scanlines (I believe the DOS
version does by default) this avoids games having large square
pixels. XGS, as far as I can tell, has no scanline emulation
and makes everything look gross. Funny you should bring this
up since XGS is basically a preview of how the Second Sight
will make your IIgs graphics appear--blockly, square pixels.

>I admit, I never used it to play the games you mentioned,
>but I did fool around with a lot of old arcade titles like
>Moon Patrol, Xaxxon, and Asteroids.  Brings back
>memories, but I wouldn't call the music great!

    Different arcade machines used different sound processors.
Moon Patrol used the AY-3-8910, which just happens to be the
same chip used by the Apple II Mockingboard. That is certainly
not FM synthesis and IMO, lesser than Diversi-Tune. If you try
emulating some YM-3812 games, they can actually use the OPL3
on your PC sound card instead of using the DAC to emulate one.
This will give you a good idea of what FM synthesis is capable
of when creative and good programming is applied (again, try
some of the YM-3812 or YM-2203 game examples I gave above).

>Not MIDI to Protracker, which would be bad.
>
>MIDI to GS NoiseTracker.  We are talking about
>the difference between a 4 voice format and a
>15 track format.

    See above. Increased voices won't help, it's still MOD
format being used to play notes.

>I'd like to hear an explanation too.  I'm pretty sure GS
>NoiseTracker has sustain and fade in, fade out and
>volume.  The other ones, well you can simply use
>different samples.

    As I said, MIDIsynth has far more control over each
oscillator and waveform envelopes than NoiseTracker GS.
Poke around inside synthLAB and look at all the control
you have modifying each instrument and how it sounds (I
had to spend a long time in there making my piano bank
sound just right. With NoiseTracker you just digitize a
sample and that is it, the end, no tweaking it further).

>But you make it sound like, effects aside, the
>QUALITY of MIDIsynth sound is superior to GS
>NoiseTracker sound.  Why is that?

    It depends on your definition of sound quality. You can
certainly play back crisp and clear digitized sound samples
using NoiseTracker GS (and far larger ones than MIDIsynth)
but a musical sequence may not sound as good as a MIDIsynth
sequence because of the way instrument playback is handled.
It is far less flexible and so will sound more artifical.

>I've ran it when my computer was a P200+ before
>I accidentally static zapped it when installing a
>hard drive.  Now I have to underclock it, but I
>am sure that a P200+ is fast enough.  And don't
>think you can provoke me into a lunatic rage by
>insulting both my units.  Even as a P166+, it is
>faster than a Pentium-166.  That's why it is called
>a P166+.  ;-)

    I already explained this, in most cases it will not be
faster because it has crippled internal math coprocessing
(equivalent to a P90 rather than a P166). Anything that is
intensive in this area, such as games (try Quake), will be
far slower than a real Pentium 166. This may very well be
the reason your having such poor results with WinAmp and the
Yamaha Soft Synt,h which heavily depend on your chip's math
coprocessing as far as I know.

    You don't have to take my word for it, do a little
research using Dejanews or Yahoo and look it up. Have
a look at http://www.tomshardware.com for more detail.

>Do you know that some bands are still using the
>ESQ-1, which utilizes the same Ensoniq 5503 unit
>as the IIGS?  Mostly the ones that work at weddings
>and parties, granted, but they are still in use.
>
>If it is good enough for musicians, why is it so hard
>for you to believe that it is good enough for some
>people to use to listen to some music?

    Exactly what does this have to do with the Apple IIgs?
The ESQ-1 and Mirage may use the same chip, but they have
double the amount of dedicated sample RAM (128K vs 64K)
which alone makes a huge difference, and don't forget they
have different support (software) for utilizing the same
chip. I made a perfect example above, the OPL3 is used by
old PC sound cards and arcade machines, however, they can
sound *very* different because of the software controlling
them (a lot of old PC games sounded awful, yet not arcade
games using the same chip).

    As I said, I think the Ensoniq inside the IIgs is quite
decent and often sounds fantastic (I still like the music
Will Harvey did in Zany Golf and The Immortal, and there
are a few MIDIsynth sequences I have a fondness for) but
this is different from saying it is a fantastic tool for
playing back MIDI files. I'll give you this, the POTENTIAL
is there for something better than MIDIsynth, but let's
see someone write a good MIDI player first.

>>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.
>
>This, coming from the person who tries to claim
>that the 44.1Khz sampling rate actually captures
>44.1Khz FREQUENCIES...(it does not...44.1Khz
>sampling...CD quality...captures 22Khz audio
>frequency).

    I never claimed that, I was just taking what you said about
the low pass filter with a grain of salt. Funny you should try
and bring up my making false or questionable technical claims
on this newsgroup, coming from the person who has less than a
clean track record at that.

>I understand that, but I'm telling you...I've got
>better results by just recording either onto
>audio tape, into the IIGS, or (if you think I am
>somehow biased to the IIGS) even through my
>PC sound card.  In either 8-bit or 16-bit mode.
>
>That's why I'm saying MP3 sounds like it
>degrades the sound more than reducing from
>16-bit to 8-bit.  Not putting the IIGS in the
>picture, it sounds like this way to me USING
>MY PC SOUND CARD!

    This makes no sense whatsoever, unless you've been
really unlucky and have been downloading poorly digitized
and encoded MP3 audio files. Exactly what is the issue
that has you believing the IIgs (or analog casettes)
sound better? Is WinAmp skipping or stuttering perhaps?
That can be attributed to your computer being too slow
to handle on the fly decompression and playback (this
was the case with my old 5x86-133, equal to a P75). If
your getting popping and skipping, your PCI video card
may also be at fault. Try playing the MP3 and not
touching the mouse or moving around any windows.

>>    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.
>
>COME ON MAN!
>
>MP3 is NOT CD quality!

    Sorry, but it is. You don't have to take my word for
it either, there are plently of sound dicussion groups
out there you can visit or read up some FAQs.

>>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.
>
>I never once claimed that.

    I could have sworn you did, back when you were posting
to this group under another anonymous account.

>Grasshopper, let me tell you a story:

[GIF vs JPEG stuff snipped]

    I see your point, about artificating (although you may be able
to avoid that if you compress JPEG using maximum quality under
save preferences). However, unlike JPEG's, there is no percievable
difference to the human hear between a plain WAV and that same WAV
file compressed into MPEG-3. Why don't you research this a bit and
you'll see I'm not making up stories. I'm sensitive to discrepancies
in sound quality (however minor) and I can personally tell you I
cannot hear a difference between CD's and MP3's.

    How about I tell you a story, about a fox and some grapes...

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca