Re: Need IIe, IIgs MIDI software

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

Mitch replied:

>Thanks for the wealth of info. It will be a couple of
>weeks before I can put RT.Synth to use. Too many dire
>things on the table now. I don't mind playing the IIe
>live at all. The IIgs will be MIDIfied. That's good enough.

You're very welcome.

The //e is quite MIDI-capable, too, and several sequencers
were written for it--they're just harder to find.  They
had an even more limited market than the IIgs tools.  ;-(

<snip>

>In general, the Apple II community doesn't seem as
>fired up about making music as the Commodore folks are.
>The amount of energy going into working with the SID
>chip is staggering. But what about the SID's grandson,
>the Ensoniq ES 5503 which is in the IIgs? Something
>tells me that it has potential which is far from being
>tapped.

I see this as a direct result of the differences in the
capabilities of the standard hardware configurations.

The SID chip in the C=64 was a very capable synthesizer--
much more advanced than the popular add-on AY-3-8910's for
the Apple II line--and _they_ were add-ons used by a small
percentage of the Apple II market!

For example, the SID and the '8910 both had three oscillators
and a noise source, but while the '8910 was limited to square
waves and simple envelopes, the SID could do triangle waves,
sawtooth waves, and variable-width pulses (including square
waves) and also had versatile envelope control and a highly
configurable filter on the output.

The one-bit speaker toggle was the only standard audio support
on the Apple II line until the IIgs, and its extreme simplicity
lowered developers'--and users'--aspirations substantially.

I've had fun pushing the standard 1-bit audio further than
the norm, but, of course, the time for stirring passions
has long passed.

There were much more capable add-ons created for the Apple II,
even early in its life--the Mountain Music System is a premier
example.  But this was a very expensive add-on, and that made
it a "musician's tool", not a "popular" device.  As a result,
its market was extremely limited, with the result that very
little (but excellent) software was written to exploit it.

This shows the critical importance of ubiquity in attracting
a "critical mass" of software support.

>I'd very much like to build a MIDIbox SID:
>
>http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_sid.html
>
>The mp3s I've downloaded from that page are superb. The
>mp3s I've heard so far of IIgs music are wonderful, but
>of a lesser sonic quality. But isn't the Ensoniq ES
>5503 a superior chip? It was designed by Bob Yannes,
>who had previously created the SID 6581. One would
>assume that he was taking a step forward and not back.

The Ensoniq chip is far superior, but the level of effort
put into harnessing it in the IIgs platform should be
regarded as near minimal.  If serious electronic musicians
became sufficiently interested in the IIgs as a synthesizer
platform, great results are achievable.

>Maybe people just look at the Ensoniq synths which were
>based on the 5503 and throw up their hands and think
>"why bother, it's already been done." I'm not so sure
>about that. The sounds coming out of todays SIDs are
>comparable to what came out of the Ensoniqs synths. How
>far could the 5503s go?

I think your opinion is accurate.  Unless someone gets
really interested in the IIgs and music, we may never know.

-michael

Real music synthesis for 8-bit Apples
http://members.aol.com/mjmahon