[Coco] General Midi was Drivewire VHD's

[Aaron Wolfe]

On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 3:00 PM, Willard Goosey <goosey at virgo.sdc.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 03:12:27AM -0400, Bill Pierce wrote:
>>
>> I just got through with a disk set of Lyra songs a few minutes ago
>
> Wow, what a mess.  I enjoy listening to music, but have no skill in
> producing it. (I can press the "play" button correctly 9 times out of
> 10 :)
>
> Ever since UMUSE went free I've had the thought that it would
> be sorta cool to pick up a cheap MIDI synth and wire it up to the
> CoCo.  I guess I'm glad I didn't because it sounds like I would have
> been in for much pain and disappointment.

I think its worth exploring the coco content for anyone interested in
music.  Your results will depend a lot on the types of files.  Before
buying a synth, I would definitely experiment with the one quite
likely built into your PC.. chances are it is a lot better than any of
the synths used in the CoCo's heyday anyway :).   That in itself can
be a problem since what sounds nice on a cheap FM synth's "celesta"
might sound ridiculous on a more faithful reproduction of a celesta,
but it's not too hard to get pleasant results with modern hardware.

Umuse songs are quite easy to listen to really, I think they are much
simpler than what can be done in Lyra so its less of a challenge to
get good output.  Generally the song will tell you what type of synth
it is set up for right in the description, and there are only 3-4
synths that cover 95% of all the songs I've found, with a couple of
them being mostly the same instruments.  The included DW4 translations
cover those common synths, and I enjoy listening to basically anything
done in Umuse very easily.  I'm absolutely sure the translations could
be improved, but they are adequate for UME files.

There are lots of CMF files around as well, and these play perfectly
without even needing to choose a profile because they use the GM
instrument mapping.  So these are "ready to go".

I haven't experimented much with the Lyra files but the impression I
get is that these are much more involved and might not be easy for
casual listeners to play.  Luckily Bill is talking about converting
these to GM, so they would then be playable on anything including the
CoCo.   If it is possible to improve or add the translation that DW
does in a way that makes unconverted songs sound good, I will
certainly try to do it.

>
> Maybe I'll play around with Drivewire's MIDI interface at some point,
> but until then I think I'll stick with my collection of MOD files. :-)
>

I think the DW stuff might be easier than the impression I've given..
you really do just hit play and possibly try picking a few different
synths out of a menu to see if they sound "better".  It's not perfect
(and not meant to be) but it's fun :)


> Willard
> --
> Willard Goosey  goosey at sdc.org
> Socorro, New Mexico, USA
> I search my heart and find Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.
>  -- R.E. Howard
>
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