Re: Really good Apple IIGS sound/music?

[Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com>]

limtc <thyechean@gmail.com> wrote:

>What's your opinion of any good Apple IIGS games/applications that
>really show off Apple IIGS stereo sound capability besides demos?

    I'd have to think about that, there were several...
    
>I can think of a few (which I already shown to my kids):
>
>- DiversiTune (everybody favoruites!)
>- Music Construction Set (this one seems to gear more towards
>classical music)
>- Arkanoid II
>- Rastan
>- Zany Golf

How about adding:

- The Immortal
- Silpheed
- Spacefox
- Ancient Land of Ys
- Pente
- Winter Games
- World Games
- Rocket Ranger
- Three Stooges
- Skate or Die
- Sierra games (i.e. Police/King/Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry)
- Pangea games with music by Gene Koh (i.e. Senseless Violence 2, 
 Cosmocade, Xenocide)

>I don't quite like the sound generated from SoundSmith,

    Typical Soundsmith songs were 4-voice MODs stripped of their 
effects, so I'd agree here. The exception was anything composed
specifically for the IIgs, anything from James Brookes is a perfect
example: Digital Exodus X-Mas Demo '93 (the remixed song taken
from the GSA California Demo), GS<>IRC Demo with his Depeche
Mode songs, a bunch of other games he composed for in the early
to mid 1990's.

    Spacefox is another beautiful example of 15-track Soundsmith
music composed specifically for the GS. Or any of the FTA demos
out there. Ninjaforce's Mega Demo is a nice example of playing 
MODs with effects inside a GS demo (plus I always liked the tune
in BBS Demo and Dotland!).

>Music Studio

    Sounded awful in my opinion. Mind you, someone created a
custom wavebank and did a _really_ cool version of The Police's
"Every Breath You Take" that you'd never guess was coming 
from Music Studio. Have that here.

    Ah, just thought of Instant Music and Jam Session. These are nice 
ones for sound quality, and furthermore they're interactive--sort of music
doddling programs and you don't need any musical skill or background!
I think your kids would like these.

>and MIDISync (based on what I heard so far). 

    I really was impressed by "ShortDemo.seq", "Midsummer.seq" and
"Capri.seq" from Apple Computer. They really took advantage of what
synthLAB (MIDIsynth) was supposed to be. 

    Unfortunately too many people used synthLAB to playback GM/GS
MIDI files, and the limited instrument patches and voices didn't cut it.
I converted several dozen of my own sequences and released them,
but done with care so they were far better than the average songs
being released. The best example was when I created my own custom
wavebanks, one with a Grand piano. I seem to remember creating 
a Jazz.bank patch too, got some really nice sound out of synthLAB
(I was in the process of posting some samples on YouTube, I can
send you a link).

>NoiseTracker and some MOD players have excellent sounds.

    Only decent MOD players were BeatBox and Shellplay (which
was given an NDA interface by Ninjaforce). The others didn't 
support all the effects and had issues with sound quality I seem
to remember.

>Any suggestions are welcome. I am trying to find more software to show
>my family ever since I can get stereo sound on my GS.

    There are many, many more examples, but this is just off the top
of my head.

Mitchell Spector