EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 42, Issue 10 This issue's topics: hardware Buchla Thunder & Lightning (3 messages) Cheap Studio Speakers (2 messages) Closed-circuit music access CV-to-MIDI DSP pitch-shift In Search Of........ Mixers under $600 Powerbooks (2 messages) Roland D-5: What have I gotten into here? Sharp Portable DAT 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: Wed, 1 Jul 1992 07:27:11 EDT From: "D. Yuen" Subject: Re: Buchla Thunder & Lightning No, Mike. When you said "more dramatic etc." I thought you had seen one in a performance. The software seems powerful, but the darn thing won't work the same way twice. Therefore my interest in a structured show. If "they" did 3 sucsessive performances of the Blue Danube, then there's hope. If the performance was Don Buchla gesticulating like a windmill while a buch of synths squawked, well... NOTE: even the conductor program won't play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (or what ever is preprogrammed) the same way twice. The problem is making Lightning react to the zone definitions in a repeatable way. Actually the left wand is worse than the right. So it goes. After Metlay leaves again, whose turn is it to play the resident psychotic? Are we doing this alphabeticly? DY ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1992 09:00:00 EDT From: wbf@ALUX2.ATT.COM Subject: :-) What is this; trash Metlay week? Leave poor Mike alone. Talk about him AFTER he's left the net! (-; 8^* Bill ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1992 11:03:30 +0000 From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: Buchla Thunder & Lightening >I rather like it, but not for subtlety, the machinery isn't refined enough. Metlay? Subtletly? What an interesting concept... So, is there anywhere where I could try out a Thunder? Like a music shop or something? If this isn't possible, then are all the Thunder owners all over the world buying them blind? >I was being flip, my friend. The Thunder, if it's still being made, sells >for $1995 directly from Buchla. OK, that's the sort of figure I'd have guessed. Maybe next year for dance projects. Yeah. I really need a new kind of controller to unleash my creativity for some new live performance projects. Keyboards are useless now that the Thunder is available. Btw, My June KEYBOARD arrived this morning (dunno what happened to the May one). Lots of stuff about Emerson's giant Moog. Not that impressed myself; it looks only half the size of the Big Moog Klaus Schulze used to have... And then there's (gulp) TONTO... Nick. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1992 09:22:25 EST From: Jon Crystal Subject: Cheap Studio Speakers Just came across a review of a powered speaker/subwoofer system which might be a good choice for home studio use on a tight budget.Atlantic Technology Pattern 100 system - similar to Bose Acoustimass but self-powered - used to list for $ 500 but now sells for $299 thru Damark. Stereo Review technical article was ver y impressed overall, inc. flat response curve. Of special note for use with a synth setup:the protective circuitry built in to avoid overloads, three stereo in RCA inputs, so could marginally be used in place of a mixer, and real small satellites, which can hang on a synth stand. So...on a tight budget this might really serve multiple purposes. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1992 14:24:51 CDT From: Greg Johnson Subject: Re: Cheap Studio Speakers Fri, 10 Jul 1992 09:22:25 EST Jon Crystal said: > Just came across a review of a powered speaker/subwoofer > system which might be a good choice for home studio use on a > tight budget. Atlantic Technology Pattern 100 system - > similar to Bose Acoustimass but self-powered. > Stereo Review technical article was very impressed overall, inc. > flat response curve. Of special note for use with a synth > setup:the protective circuitry built in to avoid overloads, > three stereo in RCA inputs, so could marginally be used in > place of a mixer, and real small satellites, which can hang > on a synth stand. I've used a Pattern 100 for a year and am pleased. By separately amplifying the stereo satellites and the subwoofer, it gets very good efficiency, so the low wattage may be misleading. There are separate pots for the satellites and the subwoofer. Yes, you can use the multiple inputs as a primitive mixer. The whole system is small enough to lug around. Watch out, the little satellites are directional. When I first pointed them out at a milling 400 person crowded room, a friend came up from the middle of the room and warned me I was too loud (and probably too bright). Now I set them on my master board pointed back over my shoulders, if possible at a hard surface wall. I noticed a resonance interference beat at about E2 for a certain reed timbre, but not for other sounds; other speakers or 'phones don't exhibit this. The plugs from satellites to woofer/amp unit are polarized T speaker plugs, but an unusual size and of poor quality. I suppose if you only move the thing once per season that's ok, but I eventually soldered mine in. It's great fun when people wander up and ask about these speakers. I noodle up some low low bass which of course comes from the nondescript black box on the floor. Since that doesn't look like a speaker, so the people are shocked that such rich sounds can come from teensy tiny speakers. What's greater is that I can put my feet against the subwoofer and experience that kinesthetic rush that comes from pipe organs, but without the ear damage of rock mega-amps. The Pattern is black! I still have a magnetized ball point pen that got stuck to a studio monitor. The Pattern is magnetic shielded. I can lay a diskette on or near a satellite unit without losing data! I've heard claims that satellite speaking systems have midrange gaps. Given how midtones are mixed from the interference of each driver, I'd believe that they interact with the acoustic environment somewhat more delicately than bigger units. However, you could move 'em, hang them up in corners, tie them to your knees, or whatever if that was necessary. Atlantic Technologies has a new model out that might be an improvement on the 100, and also has a quad surround-sound version. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1992 16:22:17 EDT From: "Joseph D. McMahon" Subject: Closed-circuit music access lORNE HAMMOND writes: > tHIS IS AN EXCELLENT PROBLEM. (oops, caps) Imagine this net if we > could archive/transmit each others work! (I cringe, given mine...) > > But as a wet blanket: aren't you "broadcasting" in the cablevision sense. > That means CRTC, royalties, copyright etc. And universities are very > sensitive about their legal position. > > Second, and related to the above, what a pain for the library staff to be > human juke box changers for multiple customers. better to have the listening > list in digital form for access. > > Got to go. > lorne Hammond > ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1992 08:08:42 EDT From: "Joseph D. McMahon" Subject: CV-to-MIDI Lorne hammond <051796%UOTTAWA.BITNET@american.edu> writes: j.l. cooper makes/made a small box that converts gate and cv to midi. I saw one once, it has no controls, just the three jacks at the back and a 9 volt external power input. There were no clues as to what type/types of gate voltage it read (negative, positive, ground (moog), etc). Looks like you simply plugged your gate & cv out jacks into it and got midi. The best use I thought of for it was to dump fast & variable speed analogue sequencer outputs into it. Used the guy wanted $250, too high I thought, as a Roland 101 Midi to 4 channels of cv& gate was the same price used. Prices were Canadi an so figure 20% off in US funds. Anyone know anything about the Cooper unit? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1992 16:22:04 MDT From: Julius Pierce Subject: DSP pitch-shift borst@server.cs.jhu.edu inquired about DSP pitch-shifting. If you understand how to resample, then you can get pitch-bend from a change of time scale. That is, if you could change the playback speed of a sound w/o altering its frequency composition, then you could change the pitch by shrinking or expanding that sound back into its original time interval. Here is the simpler way to produce time-scale changes: Frame the data in chunks of 1/20 th to 1/25 th sec, window the frames, move the frames and add 'em up. ^ ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... audio | ................................................................ level | ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... | time ----> /\ /\ /\ / \/ \/ \ / /\ /\ \ / / \/ \ \ triangular windows for overlapping frames / / /\ \ \ / / / \ \ \ / / / \ \ \ / / / \ \ \ / / / \ \ \ . ... .................. 1st windowed frame of sound ... . ... .................. 2nd windowed frame of sound ... Now, if you want to make the sounds last longer, you just keep repeating a frame or "grain" of sound until its time to go to the next one. The edge-ramps (== triangular windows) help blend the sound (as there is no guarantee that the edges of the frames will splice well.) It turns out that this method is used in commercial pitch-shifters to tune a tape-recorded piece of music, for instance. Those units either use CCD or digital delay or rotating tape heads to implement a similar algorithm. The time-domain method is computationally efficient, but does distort the spectrum of the sound. If you are framing at 20 Hz, say, sinusoids of 30 Hz, 50 Hz, 70 Hz, 20 + 10*(integer) Hz will be 180 degrees out of phase at the frame edges, and will thereby produce some cancellation during the overlapping frame window mix. This is like a comb filter. And since the attenuation is greater in the region of overlap, such sinusoids are also amplitude-modulated, producing spurious harmonic components. To do it "right", one must take discrete fourier transforms (DFT), of the frames, rotate the phases, inverse DFT, move the frames in the time domain and remix. For example, to make the sound last twice as long w/o subtantially altering its spectral composition, the phase of each frequency component in the DFTs of the frames should be doubled, then (after inverse DFT) the time- domain frames should be spaced twice as far apart in time as originally, and then added up. You might also need a gain adjustment. banzai, julius@math.utah.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1992 12:50:00 CST From: DPFEIFER@MTSU.BITNET Subject: In Search Of........ HELP!! Does anyone know where to lay hands on filter modules for ARP 2600's? How about old 2600's themselves? All I really need is a filter, but I will cons ider buying a whole synth just to have spare parts. Also looking for schemat ics for the 2600 and MemoryMoog. How about old 2600's themselves? All I really need is a filter, but I will cons ider buying a whole synth just to have spare parts. Also looking for schemat ics for the 2600 and MemoryMoog. Thanks.........Dan P. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1992 16:11:09 EST From: Jon Crystal Subject: Mixers under $600 For those who have raised various questions recently about inexpensive mixers, note that the latest edition of Keyboard has a lenghty comparison of 20-30 of t hem. Quick bottom line is overall winner is Mackie 1202. Also of interest in the issue is first part of lengthy interview with Wendy Car los, including creation of the remake of Switched on Bach (2000). ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1992 13:50:47 EDT From: "Joseph D. McMahon" Subject: Powerbooks Lorne Hammond <051796%UOTTAWA.BITNET@american.edu> writes: > > The current (ELP cover) ish of Keyboard has an editorial that > states the Powerbook series have MAJOR problems with MIDI due > the power saving part of the operating system. Seems they send > info out no problem but "look away" every now and then from the ports > and miss things. This is at its worst in heavy midi streams and > when receiving banks of sysex. Sounds like a nightmare to a non-MAc > user. A programmer friend thinks it is fixable, eventually. > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1992 10:43:44 +0000 From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: Powerbooks >> The current (ELP cover) ish of Keyboard has an editorial that >> states the Powerbook series have MAJOR problems with MIDI due >> the power saving part of the operating system. Seems they send >> info out no problem but "look away" every now and then from the ports >> and miss things. This is at its worst in heavy midi streams and >> when receiving banks of sysex. Sounds like a nightmare to a non-MAc >> user. See my recent posting on this. The KEYBOARD review was mostly accurate (though pretty misleading in the description of the specific models and their features). >> A programmer friend thinks it is fixable, eventually. If you really want all the dirty details I'll try to dig them out. The problem seems to be "mostly fixable". In fact, there are several problems, some of which are fixable on some machines. Nick. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 05:50:53 GMT From: Jeff Preston Subject: Roland D-5: What have I gotten into here? Well, the non-keyboardist finally took the plunge -- I went out and bought a synth to round out my microstudio setup. Not having kept up with the appropriate lists/newsgroups, I'm not sure if I bought a great synth, but the price seemed right: $300 for a almost-never used (and yeah, it didn't have a scratch on it... even the manuals look brand new) Roland D-5. So... what I was wondering was if anyone here has any info about this thing (other than the fact that it's a stripped-down D-10/D-20), such as known bugs or quirks. Anything that might catch on fire or electrocute the cat would be nice to know in advance. I would have asked here first, but a friend of a friend was moving in a hurry and needed the cash, so I lept before looking... did I screw this one up good? If this sounds like a "keeper", how about some budget hardware-based sequencer advice? :) Hey, you didn't think I would try to actually *play* this thing, didja?? Thanks, Jeff -- | Jeff Preston - owner and moderator of | "We don't get many requests | | the Allan Holdsworth discussion list | for recent history." -- Mr. | | *** To subscribe, send e-mail to: *** | Atoz, from the '69 Star Trek | | | episode _All Our Yesterdays_ | ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 09:34:37 EST From: Jon Crystal Subject: Sharp Portable DAT Anyone have info on this portable DAT machine? They are now being discounted fo r about $500, but few specs available. ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************