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=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-APPLE II MUSIC & SOUND FORUM CONFERENCE LOGNovember 6, 1991 10 PM ETTopic: GS Music Programs - Noisetracker and MusicStudioForum Leader: Joyce Madden (AFL JoyceM),Forum Assistant: Gene Koh (AFA Gene)Forum Consultants: Greg Dib (ELECTMUSIC), Ed Rosenblatt(AFC Eddie), Lindsay Hough (LindsayGS)

Copyright (c) 1991 America OnlineAll Rights Reserved=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

AFC Eddie Greg, how's your MS problem coming?

ELECTMUSIC Need further consulting... Joyce :)

AFL JoyceM What is the MS problem, Greg?

ELECTMUSIC Have you used the D5 for Midi Input into MStudio?I seem to get the default note value for any rhythm I input?

ie. If I have a quarter note selected and play a whole note...only a quarter note will appear on the screen

AFL JoyceM Rhythm from the D5 disk or your own rhythm input?

ELECTMUSIC My own rhythm

AFL JoyceM Hm....I will check that out. Don't remember it being a problem

ELECTMUSIC Yet my other Midi instrument works fine

AFL JoyceM I know I didn't have problems with the Yamaha. But will re-checkthe D5.

ELECTMUSIC Yep, I didn't have any problem with my Yamaha eitherIt was just with the Roland

AFL JoyceM Eddie, do you have problems with your Roland and MStudio?

AFC Eddie No, not at all.

ELECTMUSIC Eddie... do you have any Yamaha equipment?

AFC Eddie I've used it with MStudio rarely, but without problem.No Yamaha stuff, sorry.

AFL JoyceM Dan, we we will be discussing what is in our libraries tonight andany other subject that arises.

AFC Eddie Bet Gene knows the answer to this one!

ELECTMUSIC Yea, I think so...Gene, quick question for ya

AFA Gene ok :)

ELECTMUSIC I tried to Midi in a D5 into MStudio and all it would display isthe default rhythm value...Example: If a quarter note was

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selcted and I played a whole note it would only display aquarter note. Any ideas?

AFA Gene This is a problem with the MIDI signal that the D-5 sends. There'sreally nothing that can be done about it that I know of. I'veused my D-5 that way since I first got it, and I've never beenable to find a way to get around the problem. It only occurs withMusic Studio, no other program.

ELECTMUSIC Its alos curious that Mwriter works fine. Ok... Thats good new..well sort of

AFL JoyceM Greg, what happens if you you select an 8th note...I rememberdoing that to solve a problem that I can't remember now why :)

ELECTMUSIC I was wondering if it was the computer or the setup

AFA Gene Actually, it's probably a problem with Music Studio's algorithmfor processing MIDI data, because as far as I know the D-5's MIDIfunctions are 100% compatible with the industry standard.

ELECTMUSIC It will only display an eighth notethen, Joyce

AFC Eddie Then why no problem with the Yamaha or the D20?

ELECTMUSIC The Problem was when MStudio was developed the Midi standard wasstill DEVELOPING :)

AFA Gene Dunno. No problem with any other commonly-used keyboard, either.Strange.

AFL JoyceM Does a MIDI driver change this problem?

ELECTMUSIC Gene, I have heard of a couple other people who had this problem,

but its the first time it happened to me.

AFC Eddie Are you using MS's MIDI driver?

AFA Gene It's just something with MS (the actual code) and the D-5 thatdoesn't jive perfectly.

ELECTMUSIC Yep, I agree Gene

ELECTMUSIC Remember when we had ALS online and they explained that they senda Midi signal out to make sure an instrument is hooked up :)Thats what caused Joyce's Yamaha to have MStudio crash

AFL JoyceM Yes....and I had one devil of a time getting the two to speak(with the Yamaha) and had to count before I turned on theYamaha...16 - 20 seconds actually. It was a real hit and missproposition.

AFC Eddie A & L ?

ELECTMUSIC Audio Light and Sound

AFC Eddie Thanks.

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AFL JoyceM Greg...I will try it out...also going to look at a note I haveabout that..

AFC Eddie What did they produce?

ELECTMUSIC Developed MStudio for Activision

AFC Eddie Oh! I knew the name was familiar!

ELECTMUSIC That was the golden age of the GS :)

AFL JoyceM Remember, that Big Red Computer Club is soon to releaseMusicStudio.. :)

AFC Eddie BRCC's add for Noisetracker talks about a manual!

ELECTMUSIC How about a discussion on NTracker

AFL JoyceM A manual for NoiseTracker,Eddie?

AFC Eddie That's what the add says. The program, a song disk and manual =

$10.

AFL JoyceM Where did you see the ad, Eddie?

AFC Eddie The latest InCider. Dec. issue. Page 67.

AFL JoyceM Oh, haven't gotten my inCider yet.

AFL JoyceM We will have BRCC here in AMS in January maybe

AFC Eddie Lots of good Apple II stuff in this issue. A complete index ofApple II software released in 1991.

ELECTMUSIC Yea, I thought I detected a slow change over

AFL JoyceM Finally!

ELECTMUSIC Hey, Maybe I might renew my subsription

AFC Eddie I've heard a rumor that it will go back to all Apple II.

AFL JoyceM Like that rumor!

ELECTMUSIC I do like the glossy look...if it goes back to An Apple II mag

AFC Eddie I really like GS+ magazine.

ELECTMUSIC But. its not glossy :)

AFC Eddie One of these days I'll get around to writing a MIDI article forit. It's never had that.

AFL JoyceM Great, Eddie.

AFC Eddie They asked me for one.

AFL JoyceM Let's talk about NoiseTracker if you all want...or whatever.Still looking for my Ms notes

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ELECTMUSIC Yea... I have a few questions Whats the story with the sound inRam? How do they get it there

AFA Gene You know the 64K DOC RAM? NoiseTracker stores its instruments inregular RAM, therefore instead of a 64K limit, the limit is yourfree memory! (so if you're someone like joyce, you can have a 4meg grand piano sample!)

ELECTMUSIC But, I also see instruments in DOC Ram, Gene

AFC Eddie Why didn't anyone think of that before?

AFL JoyceM :)

AFA Gene NoiseTracker tries to place the instruments in the DOC ram when itasks that question "Should 'I' try to move sounds into theDOCRAM" or something like that. You can actually hit "cancel" onthat dialog and nothing will matter, cuz the program reads fromthe system RAM for those songs. (You can hit the button labeled"Ensoniq Soundram" and it will flip to system ram -- suddenly

you'll see like 12 instruments when only 4 could fit in the DOCram

AFC Eddie Thanks!

AFA Gene the cool thing is that MOD files have been around on the Amiga fora loooong time, so there are a lot of good ones available. (thereare also a lot of duds too tho.)

ELECTMUSIC Gene...who and how is it determined the instruments go into DocRam The user? or the composer

AFA Gene The program. :) Those music files were not made for the GS,remember :)

AFL JoyceM Question. Can one create a MOD file without having an alreadymade file from say an Amiga?

ELECTMUSIC Oooooohhhh....I see, it only works with Amiga files

AFA Gene Nope. Once the "Load" and "save" options are implemented, we mightbe able to.

AFC Eddie Can you compose on NT, as in SS?

AFA Gene Well, it also works with regular NoiseTracker files, but so farthere aren't that many and they were all made from within

NoiseTracker, so it was just a matter of loading the instsstraight into DOCram.

AFC Eddie How about SS songs on NT?

ELECTMUSIC Are the Amiga sound files ASIF? Yep, I tried SSMith into NT and itworked fine and SSmith used ASIF

AFA Gene Dunno what format the amiga sound files are. Jim probably knowsmore about the MOD file structure than I. Yep, NT is made tohandle SS directly.

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AFC DYAJim MOD's are their own format - not asif or aiff...But I have heardthat AIFF is popular on the amiga, perhaps the instruments thatare combined in MODs were once individual AIFF's.

ELECTMUSIC Could we go back to MOd's on the Amiga for a second....

AFL JoyceM Sooo, we need a conversion program to convert SS, SL, etc files to

MOD or NT?

AFA Gene GMTA Jim, just about to say that.

AFC DYAJim We need several conversion programs right now :)

NT -> SS (if no ram based insts)

NT INST -> ASIF/AIFF

ELECTMUSIC On the Amiga... what do they use to reproduce sound? Also... isthe GS capable of better sound with the Ensoniq?

AFL JoyceM Could one just rename the file type to MOD and see what happens,say with a MIDI file? or the like?

AFC DYAJim I doubt you can load midi files into nt :)

AFL JoyceM Gene, Greg...do you remember that program that Dennis was workingon to do some conversions...wonder it that would work? it was abeta version and never was released?

AFA Gene In either case Greg, you're dealing with digitized samples, so itwould sound the same on either machine.... in fact, i'm not sureon this, but it might...scratch that... the songfiles wouldalmost definitely sound a bit worse on the GS cuz they've gone

thru a conversion process that I'm not sure is 100% accurate.

ELECTMUSIC Is the Amiga 8 bit?

AFC DYAJim amoeba = 65k

AFC DYAJim How do you know they're converted? I've just heard lots that thefidelity of the amoeba music chip is slightly cleaner andclearer, but it can only do 4 oscs at once.

AFA Gene I mean when NT loads them in, it's converting the crunched soundfile format. (Not sure at all on this, just speculating)

AFC DYAJim Crunched sound file format ?

AFA Gene Whatever..... the mod :)

ELECTMUSIC Ahhhh... So the Amiga has a an amoeba nusic chip...

AFC DYAJim MODs aren't packed in any way to my knowledge

AFC Eddie CFF, haven't you heard, Jim?

AFC DYAJim CFF?

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AFC Eddie Crunched File Format!

AFC DYAJim lol Eddie! :)

AFA Gene There goes that theory, then... dunno... all I know is that somesongs seem to sound clearer on the Amiga.

ELECTMUSIC what music software is being used on the Amiga to create thesefiles?

AFC DYAJim I think it's the amoeba sound chip, Gene. Clearer and cleaner, butless powerful overall.

AFA Gene Maybe they're comparing it to a standard GS without noisereduction. I'm sure with an Audio Animator's noise reduction theGS has to sound sharper (than the Amiga, I mean :)

ELECTMUSIC Anyone know what music software is being used on the Amiga?

AFC DYAJim I mean, you can play the same digital waveform on two different

sound chips and chances are they'll play it slightly differentlydue to different things in the chips.

ELECTMUSIC I am not too impressed with AAnimators quality Gene. They limitfrequency response.

AFA Gene I'm just talking about the noise reduction, not the digitizinggreg

AFA Gene Agreed Jim, which basically means the last 3 minutes of banterwere complete gibberish. :)

AFC DYAJim :)

ELECTMUSIC I feel the best digitizing is FSound

AFC DYAJim Too bad it went bye bye Greg :(

AFL JoyceM And you can'g get Fsound anymore!

AFA Gene I saw the logon.... weird, it said "COMPUTING's music and sound"as if the Forums were a magazine or something.

ELECTMUSIC Isn't that the way...

AFC Eddie Yes, Gene, I saw that in a previous AMS banner.

ELECTMUSIC Soo... does anyone know what music software is creating thesefiles on the Amiga?

AFL JoyceM Weird, but no wyrm/banner? Sorry, Greg, I don't know.

AFC DYAJim I don't have an amoeba so I don't know

ELECTMUSIC Geez... some of the discussions in our forum seem be to from usersthat know both computer platforms, as if they can create thesefiles and then port them over to the GS

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ELECTMUSIC only Amiga users can create the music and sound for Mod files

Drib Eddie, where? New????

AFL JoyceM $59 - where?

AFC Eddie Preferred Computing. 1-800-327-7234. $59.95 that is. New.

ELECTMUSIC we have NTracker to convert these files for Listening only

AFA Gene Exactly, greg... in its current form it's best suited as aplayback module.

Drib software and all right?

AFC Eddie Yes.

AFL JoyceM Good questions, Greg....and we have to rely on others to give isthese MOD files?

Drib great! I found one for $75 used! that's way more

AFL JoyceM The classical MOD file (can't remember its name) is good.

AFA Gene If AO didn't screw up we could simply tell users to use keywordPMU and grab as many MOD files as they want.

AFC DYAJim Exactly Gene..

AFL JoyceM If one downloaded MOD files from, say an Amiga BBS, no conversionsneeded? but can they be put on a regular ProDOS disk? and theused with NT?

AFA Gene Yep.

AFC DYAJim I've downloaded MODs from an IBM bbs with no problems.

AFL JoyceM Ah...we have a big Amiga BBS here....hm...now if I can just findthe time :)

ELECTMUSIC Its interesting the FTA saw the need for this... speculatingwhy????

AFL JoyceM Jim, you going to write a MOD conversion program for us? hinthint

AFC DYAJim Not enough time ! :) Who knows, really .. but not till next year

at least

AFA Gene FTA's always been into the Amiga.... this is just their firstmajor cross-over project.

AFC DYAJim Convert what exactly tho?

AFA Gene Nothing to convert with mod files, that's the beauty of it :)

AFC DYAJim I think FTA released it to go against the commericialization ofsoundsmith

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