Re: New Sythlab Songs

[tribby@cup.hp.com (Dave Tribby)]

G.Sanchez (butch@netcom.com) wrote:

> I Just posted and Uploaded some sythLab songs that I converted from midi 
> to comp.binaries.apple2 and to ftp.cco.caltech.edu.

> Any comments are welcome, read the read.me file for more info.

These sound very good! I've done these types of translations, and understand
how hard it can be to get the right sound.

I have a few opinions on MIDI Synth song archives. Others, of course, may
disagree...

 * Don't include the standard Apple instrument (.BNK) and waveform (.WAV)
   files in the archive, since folks should have those available on their
   synthLAB disk. I noticed you used Ian Schmidt's customized instrument
   file, which many people might not have, and was appropriate to include.

 * Because the MIDI Synth sequencer can only play seven notes at a time,
   it has to clip notes when more than seven simultaneous ones are played.
   Sometimes it's better to turn off tracks that have duplicate notes
   rather than try to play them all.

 * I notice that you used MIDI Surgeon in the preparation of some songs,
   but those sequences contained many "unused" MIDI commands (legal
   MIDI commands that are not used by MIDI Synth). You can save a lot of
   space by letting MIDI Surgeon remove them.

You'll want to be sure your subscription to GS+ is paid up. The rumor, wish,
or blatant lie is: there will VERY SOON be an article on translating MIDI
songs to MIDI Synth, including an update to a popular translation program
that increases speed, adds features, and gives you something to look at
while a song is playing. There might even be a new instrument and associated
waveform file.

There might also be a significant number of songs uploaded to the net,
since the programmer had to run lots of test cases.

-- Dave Tribby
   tribby@cup.hp.com