EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 12, Number 2 Today's Topics: Depending on technology (2 messages) Music Technology "Reader Tapes" address External pads for the Octapad? (3 messages) IBM-PC MIDI hardware and software (3 messages) MIDI Spec package available from LISTSERV@AUVM Music computers - an alternative CMJ issues on neural nets Roland S-330 (4 messages) MT-32 mods? Simulated piano (4 messages) An emergency request for back issues Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 8 Jan 90 10:45:43 EST From: "Kurt A. Geisel" Subject: Re: My dependency on technology... An orchestra is dependent on electricity. If the lights go out, they won't be able to see their music or the conductor. - Kurt ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Jan 90 11:53:43 EST From: MTG@CSI.COMPUSERVE.COM Subject: Candlepower! > An orchestra is dependent on electricity. If the lights go out, they > won't be able to see their music or the conductor. ...if so, what did they do in the olden days after dark? Candlepower! Alas, my DSS runs very poorly on candles. My amps aren't much better. _Is___________________________________________ ________________________there_ | ___ | | | Mark G., of... The | volution | "Hold my mules! I think | | |--__ | I feel another one comin'!" | | |_/_ \ ontrol | | | "Controlled | __ | - Some evangelist | | breeding out \_// \ ommittee | I recorded a while ago | | of control? Call..." | | taken gloriously out of | | \__/ | context. | |_any__________________________________________|______________________escape?_| ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Jan 90 12:20:10 EST From: Joe McMahon Subject: Music Technology Address The address for the reader's tapes reviewer is: Readers' Tapes Music Technology 22024 Lassen St. Suite 118 Chatsworth, CA 91311 Requested are tape, price (if any) equipment list, comments, and a photo (could be difficult getting us all together for that!). --- Joe M. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Jan 90 15:55:00 CET From: "C.Fuhrhop" Subject: External Pads for the Octapad ? Hello out there! I've got an Octapad and am looking for a foot pad. The Octapad allows the connection of up to 6 external pads and would like to add at least a pad for a kick/bass drum. As far as I know (and the Octapad II manual goes) Roland manufactures the D-21 and the D-31 (the D21 is a single trigger pad, the D31 works as four pads). This leads to the following questions: 1.) Should I buy an D-21 and a foot machine and mount them together to get a foot pedal? 2.) Is there a complete foot trigger pad available by Roland? (I'm not talking about a foot switch to change setups or something, I'm looking for something where I can step on which will make the Octapad (really the R-5) go BOOM.) 3.) An article in a german keyboard magazine mentioned that you can connect trigger pads from other manufacturers to the Octapad. Has anyone tried that? Can anyone recommend a pedal/pad? 4.) The D-31 seems quite useless as a foot pad, but can anybody tell me something about it anyway? In the manual for the Octapad it looks like a misformed hexagon with four cables, but how are the pads arranged on it? Does it look like half of an Octapad or do you have one pad in the middle and three on the longer sides or what? Any help will be appreciated C.Fuhrhop ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Jan 90 13:10:29 -0800 From: jim deroest Subject: Re: External Pads for the Octapad ? There was an article in "Electronic Musician" a year or so back that described a home brew drum pad set with a modification to the old Octapad that wired some plugs in parallel with the Octapads internal pads. I have been using this with a home brew foot pedal modeled after the Drum Workshop pedals that uses the beater to strike a piezzo transducer available for about a dollar from Radio Shack. The transducer leads are wired to a plug for attachment to the Octapad. Real simple minded, but works great, and is real easy on the pocket book. Jim DeRoest University Computing Services University of Washington deroest@louie.cac.washington.edu deroest@uwavm.bitnet (206)543-6343 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 90 17:16:03 CST From: scotty Subject: Re: External Pads for the Octapad ? 8 Jan 90 15:55:00 CET from Drum workshop makes a sweet little kick trigger without the hassle of another pad. I can't remember the model name of it, but it works by striking itself in a downward motion of the beater. It includes two trigger outputs and an output levrl control. Very sweet indeed. Calato sells it in US and Canada, elsewhere your on your own. Good Luck. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Jan 90 11:22:00 CST From: "TOM DOLAN, BOX 6596, EXT. 2426" Subject: IBM arranging I would like to arrange "traditional" music using my Korg 2500 and an IBM-AT. Three Questions: 1. Recommend "boxes" (or keyboards) to obtain "traditional" sounds and sequences including percusion. (Low budget- I don't need alot of new sounds but would like to have good programming flexibility.) 2. Names, addresses, phone numbers of mail order outlets for Midi boards and software. (We have but one small music store in our town dedicated mainly to band instruments with the closest big town 150 miles away.) 3. Bibliography of recommended reading. (I am new to this!) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Jan 90 18:31:19 -0500 From: "Douglas M. Kopp" Subject: MIDI Software Info request: I am looking for an IBM equivalent of the Mac version of Music Construction Set. Specifically, I am looking for direct music notation from sheet music to computer. I had assumed (erroneously) that Cakewalk had this capability but was told the other day that it did not allow that. I ran across some software which included the 401 board for about two big bills. The name is Midi Studio by MidiSoft. I have looked thru 3 years of back issues of Keyboard and Electronic Musician and have not found one ad or reference. (Is this too old or too new?) Has anyone out there in MIDI-lan ever heard of this one? Any other packages which have direct notation would be of interest. I'm just an old dog trying to learn new tricks. Thanks for any info Doug Kopp ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 90 08:53:00 EST From: Marc TARDIF Subject: MIDI INTERFACE FOR IBM-PC HI Emusicians I'm a rooky in this wonderful world of electronique musique. I just got a Yamaha DSR-500 keyboard and I want to plug it in my IBM PC. Questions: 1- Witch Midi Interface to buy for IBM-PC, how much it cost and where can I get it??? 2- What software to use for playing (learning) and for recording, how much and where??? 3- There's a lot publications about Emusic, witch to read? Thanks for your time, I'll surely ask other questions later!! ------------------------------ | MARC TARDIF | Bitnet: S004@HECMTL01 | | Ecole des HAUTES ETUDES COMMERCIALES |============================| | MONTREAL, QUEBEC | Il y a un pupitre | | CANADA H3T 1V6 | quelque-part en dessous! | | Phone: (514) 340-6066 | Je l'ai deja appercu! | ------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Jan 90 17:59:31 EST From: Joe McMahon Subject: MIDI Spec Package Now Availble I think I've got the MIDI spec file distribution package fixed up now. Those who'd like to get it should send mail to LISTSERV@AUVM with the text: GET MIDISPEC PACKAGE That will deliver the files and a list of the files you should get. --- Joe M. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jan 90 10:39:07 EST From: Joe McMahon Subject: Music Computers - An Alternative There was a review of the Spectre GCR emulator for the Atari in a recent Info-Mac digest. The author uses both the Atari emulating the Mac and a Mac SE. The Atari emulates a Mac Plus (128K ROMs) or a Mac 512KE. He has successfully run System 6.0.3 on the emulator. It can use at least 4 meg of RAM (if present). Hard drives are supported, either Atari or Mac disks. The Atari has no "parameter RAM" to save the Control Panel settings, but a public domain program is available to do this. The emulator runs noably faster than an actual Mac. The ST mouse has two buttons; the emulator uses the left one as the standard Mac mouse button, while the right one is an emulated shift key, allowing you to use the multiple-selection feature of the Finder (and other programs) without taking your hand off the mouse. The emulator can read and write both Atari and Mac format disks. Disks may also be formatted as either Mac or Atari disks under the emulator. The emulator supports either the Atari RGB or paper-white monitor. The emulator uses about 300K of memory, with the rest being available for the emulated Mac. As far as music software goes, the emulator has no access to the Atari's MIDI ports. But then again, you might as well just run an Atari program for that. This arrangement is useful for those who really would like to have the Atari for music, and the Mac for "other stuff". Anyone who'd like to talk to the author of this review (whic I've condensed greatly) should write to: Larry Rymal Z4648252@SFAUSTIN.BITNET --- Joe M. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jan 90 02:34:30 pm From: Stephen Travis Pope Subject: Computer Music Journal Issues on Neural Nets, Connectionism and Music For your reader's archives: ===================================================== Computer Music Journal Volume 13 Number 3, Fall, 1989 ===================================================== Announcements, News and Calendar of Events ------------------------------------------ ---------------- Feature Articles ---------------- Continuous Abstractions for Discrete Event Languages David P. Anderson and Ron Kuivila Preface to the Special Issue on Parallel Distributed Processing and Neural Networks D. Gareth Loy Machine Tongues XII: Neural Nets Mark Dolson A Neural Net for Pitch Perception Hajime Sano and B. Keith Jenkins Connectionist Models for Tonal Analysis Don Scarborough, Ben Miller and Jacqueline Jones The Quantization of Musical Time: A Connectionist Approach Peter Desain and Henkjan Honing Using Connectionist Models to Explore Complex Musical Patterns Robert Gjerdingen Fingering for String Instruments with the Optimum Path Paradigm Samir I. Sayegh ------- Reviews ------- PERFORMANCES, EXHIBITIONS, AND CONFERENCES ------------------------------------------ The Eleventh Musica Verticale Festival, Rome Italy, December, 1988 Agostino Di Scipio NAMM Winter 1989 Convention, Anaheim California Robert J. Owens PUBLICATIONS ------------ Alf Gabrielsson, editor: Action and Perception in Rhythm and Music Robert Rowe Scott Wilkinson: Tuning In: Microtonality in Electronic Music Alfred "Shabda" Owens J. Sundberg, editor: Harmony and Tonality Erling Wold James Tenney: The History of Consonance and Dissonance Erling Wold Lindoro Del Duca: Musica Digitale Rodolfo E. Giassone RECORDINGS ---------- Neuma CD featuring works by Xenakis, Risset, Lippe and others. Robert Rowe Jukka Tiensuu: The Fantastic Clavecin Benjamin Taylor University of Delaware Interactive VideoDisk Craig Harris User's Reports -------------- Keller Designs Sequencers fot the ICM PCs Robert J. Owens Arity/Prolog Version 5.0 for IBM PCs James Dashow MusicEase Notation Software for IBM PCs Joseph Rothstein Kawai K1 Synthesizer Vincent Mello IMS Dyaxis: A Digital Audio Workstation Curtis Roads Tascam 238 Multitrack Cassette Recorder Joseph Rothstein Product Announcements --------------------- ======================================================= ======================================================= Computer Music Journal Volume 13 Number 4, Winter, 1989 ======================================================= Announcements, News and Calendar of Events ------------------------------------------ ---------------- Feature Articles ---------------- Preface to the Second Special Issue on Neural Networks D. Gareth Loy The Representation of Pitch in a Neural Network Model of Musical Chord Classification Bernice Laden and Douglas H. Keefe A Connectionist Approach to Algorithmic Composition Peter Todd Modeling the Perception of Tonal Structure with Neural Nets Jamshed J. Bharucha and Peter Todd Accelerando: A Real-Time General Purpose Computer Music System Keith Lent, Russell Pinkston and Peter Silsbee An Efficient Method for Pitch Shifting Digitally Sampled Sounds Keith Lent The Kansei Music System Haruhiro Katayose and Seiji Inokuchi Reviews ------- PERFORMANCES, EXHIBITIONS, AND CONFERENCES ------------------------------------------ ACM SIGCHI '89 Conference on Computer Human Interaction Stephen Travis Pope and Elizabeth Gibson Concert Series with Computer Music in Zurich, Switzerland David Johnson PUBLICATIONS ------------ David Rosenboom, Editor: Biofeedback and the Arts Thom Blum RECORDINGS ---------- Richard Teitelbaum, Concerto Grosso Robert Rowe CDCM Volume 2 with works of Rick Baitz, Martin Bresnick, Scott Lindroth, Neil Rolnick, and Richard Teitelbaum Robert Rowe Roberto Laneri: Anadyomene Craig Harris User's Reports -------------- Prosonus Studio Reference Disk and Smple Library CDs Joseph Rothstein Yamaha C1 Music Computer Joseph Rothstein Blank Software Alchemy 2.0 Sound Editor for Apple Macintosh R. L. Blevins Product Announcements --------------------- (stp) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jan 90 19:18:12 EST From: DAMIAN@UMASS.BITNET Subject: Roland S-330 I've been seeing a lot of talk about the Roland S-330 on the net recently. Could someone offer me a detailed review of its features? I am interested in : MIDI implementation, maximum sample length, the architecture of the machine, can it take a monitor and a mouse, and how much is the sucker going for on the market today? Thanks in advance, Damian Roskill damian@mars.ucc.umass.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jan 90 20:12:00 EST From: It's not easy being Green Subject: Re: Roland S-330 A reply to your S-330 questions... Ok, now I have a W-30, which basically is a keyboard version of the s-330. So here it is. The S-330 is a 16/12 bit sampler (12 is the digital filter) with a memory of 28.8 seconds at 15khz or 14.4 seconds at 30 Khz sample rate. It has 8 individual outputs for sequencing and has a direct hookup for a color monitor....a great aid. It also ( to what I remember) comes with mouse for quick manuverability. Hum, what else. OH, with an extra sequencing package ($200 or so) it is capable of 16 track sequencing...about 20,000 notes +or- 3000. It costs about $1400-1700..depends if you are in a popular store or whatever. It has a library already up to 60 disks free from Roland (you have to copy them at the store) I dont recall if it will read s-50 data...if so... add another 80. Anyone else on this one? Oh if so, and you live in the Rochester area...lets talk ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 90 15:42:00 CST From: Jason Keeler Subject: Re: Roland S-330 10 Jan 90 20:12:00 EST from On thing I would REALLY like to know about the S-330 is whether or not the sequencing package has that same "200 notes per pattern" nonsense that Director-S did for the S-50. If you could allocate those 20,000 notes however you want, that would make for a fine sequencer. Thanx, Jason ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 90 17:23:45 CST From: scotty Subject: Re: Roland S-330 10 Jan 90 20:12:00 EST from The S330 includes both a composite monochrome and an rgb monitor connection. The correct digital I/O as Roland states it is: Input ADC is 12 bit linear Storage is 12 bit linear Output is oversampled with a 16 bit DAC The Roland Library has grown to include about 160 diskettes as well as the wealth of 3rd party sounds. It is a fabulous machine with the biggest improvement over the S50 being the addition of the VDF section of the D50. This gives you realtime digital filtering with resonance. I also have a W30 - a fabulous machine! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 90 11:20:31 S From: CHRONISTER@SYSA.RUTGERS.EDU Subject: MT32 mods Hello, world, I was curious if anyone out there knows anything about these modifications you can order for your MT32... It was advertised in Electronic Musician, claiming the following: $99 price tag Battery BackUp kit 30 New reverb settings 128 new sounds in Eprom If anyone has dealt with this company, please let me know, personally, or on the list (it is prety dead anyway). Also, if anyone can tell me how to get information about doing mods myself to add a battery, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank-age, Ben ************************** Ben Chronister CHRONISTER@SYSA.RUTGERS.EDU ************************** Donations Cheerfully Accepted... cash or charge... ************************** ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 90 14:02:00 EST From: Brad Miller Subject: Simulated Pianos OK, so I have a Kurzweil K1000. I'm quite happy with the various piano patches. I'm reasonably happy with the keyboard action. BUT what I'm not happy about is the very limited dynamics; this machine (along with almost everyone elses) maps the dynamic range of the instrument into only 8 discreet steps. PLUS this mapping is much less forgiving than a real piano. It gets distressing when I'm banging away and can't Sfz or >, or there is too much loudness differences between two notes struck *almost* the same (usually a problem with pinky strikes). SO the question: is there a midi piano out there that REALLY ACTS LIKE A PIANO? Sampled, yes, but how about 128 velocity steps at the sample player; how about tonal differences depending on the use of the sustain pedal (hey, if sustain is on, I expect to hear sympathetic vibrations in the undamped strings, no?)_ Maybe I've just played a real piano too long, but really, it seems very hard to perform piano and piano-like pieces w/o the breath of control at least a real piano gives you; given how close the K1000 is, I would think someone out there has taken the next logical step??? Am I expecting too much? (yes, I really want midi and synth/sampled sound output; I'm not up to building a studio to accoustically mike a real piano, and I wouldn't mind an 88 key controller for the rest of my stuff either). Thanks! Brad Miller miller@cs.rochester.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 90 14:13:45 CST From: Jayson Tipp Subject: Re: Simulated Pianos 12 Jan 90 14:02:00 EST from Speaking of sampled pianos, does anyone have experience with the new Rhodes sampled piano? Apparently it has three sampled "rhodes" sounds, two grand pianos, and vibes? Some where I read that it has onboard eq, flange, and adjustable attack envelope? -Buzz. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Jan 90 15:13:00 PST From: David Rivas Subject: Re: Simulated Pianos I don't think your expecting to much from a musical instrument, though maybe from an instrument based on sampling technology. My Ph.D. research is on physical modeling of musical isntruments and the appropriate VLSI implementations of such things. The problems that you mention with the piano sound come mostly from the approach and the economics of memory. That is, you can have all that you want so long as you sample enough, but it's going to invariablly cost you. I'd be really interested in hearing about other approaches to "fixing" sampled sound. In particular the sympathetic vibrations of undamped strings problem. A number of companies are concerned about this. I am having trouble understanding how one is going to solve this properly without significantly increasing the number of samples stored; increase by orders of magnitude. One approach is to simulate the sympathetic resonances by driving a model of the strings that you want to resonate with the sampled sound. The problem with this is that it's like to sound like a recording of a piano being played through a piano. Interesting but not what you want. Though I would like to hear some simulations of this. The approach I am taking uses models that correspond as closely as possible to the actual physical structure and implement them in VLSI computing structures so that they can be run in real time. So a piano would be "built" by connecting string models to bridge models which would incorporate the string coupling. These drive sound boards etc. Not only does this allow a piano to be synthesized in a realistic fashion, but a computer (read synthesizer) could be built that allowed you to "drive strings with reeds", and create really BIG strings whose linear density varied with time. For example. If anybody out there is interested in what I am up to, I would love to talk with you. You can get a feel for some of what I have been up to by reading my paper in the latest ICMC proceedings or I can send it to you if your interested. I would love to hear a discussion of what people would like in a "new" musical instrument. David David Rivas UCSD Depth of ECE R-007 La Jolla Ca. 92093 david@ece.ucsd.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jan 90 19:40:00 EST From: It's not easy being Green Subject: Re: Simulated Pianos David... Your paper and your interest in this whole business is fantastic. I would love to hear more about your work. Right now, I am just getting into that sort of stuff here at a technical institute (RIT), but I have no real specific direction. I love music, and would love to incorporate it with my engineering studies. Please respond if you would like to send some info on your work. Steve Castle SXC2407@ritvax.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jan 90 20:35:00 EST From: METLAY@PITTVMS.BITNET Subject: EMERGENCY! Hello all, Metlay here. Yes, I'm still stuck in Tennessee, but I've managed to kluge a TELnet hookup to my account at Pitt and return to reading EMUSIC-L. I wasn't planning to post anything until I got home (echo speed and error rate from this node are killer), but this is an emergency. I have just been asked by the editorial staff of the Computer Music Journal to submit my article series on the Man-Machine Interface for the CMJ. And, as you all know, I can't save or archive my files on my home system. I've lost the name of the person who'd archived my files for me. Whoever you are, HELP! I need a copy of the series back, so I can edit it and submit it as soon as possible. Thanks and in great haste, metlay PS. ME in the CMJ?! Think of it and tremble! ---------------------- End of EMUSIC-L Digest **********************