Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    re: .0, last paragraph.
    
    Yes, Soundscape, from Mimetics, will do that.  My only problem with
    the package is its time resolution---it is limited to 1/24 of a
    quarter note.
    
    You can have up to 16 instruments playing at a time (the MIDI limit)
    plus some instruments internal to the Amiga.  Of course, to have
    16 MIDI instruments playing you must posess 16 MIDI instruments.
        John Sauter

    Thanks, John, for the reply.
    
     I was interested in a slightly different operation. I don't want
    16 instruments playing OUTSIDE of the amiga. What I had in mind
    was more like the following:
    
    Suppose I want to compose a Quartet. I want to have a violin,
    viola, cello, and, say, a bassoon (just as a for instance!...).
    Now what I want to do is select VIOLIN in the music package running
    on the Amiga, and "Play" the violin part on my electric keyboard.
    I want the system to score what I play. and be able to play it back
    to me. Then I want to play the viola, adding it to the violin, etc.
    until I have entered all of the voices, via electronic keyboard.
    
     then I want the Amiga to play the piece back to me with all of
    the parts playing at the same time. 
    
     In other words, I want the "instrumental" capabilities of the Amiga
    to allow me to compose without owning a violin, cello, etc. By playing
    on one keyboard. 
    
     Then I want to be able to edit the score.
    
    
    I want a lot!
    
    
     Will Soundscape, or any other package, do this?   
    
    			Gregg

    SoundScape combined with Deluxe Music Construction Set will do this.
    Soundscape will accept the violin part, and play it back for you
    while you record the viola part, then play back the violin and viola
    while you record the cello part, etc.
    
    SoundScape can then feed the four parts to Deluxe Music Construction
    Set, which will present it to you as a traditional music score,
    and let you edit the music.  If you aren't concerned about traditional
    music notation, you can edit directly in SoundScape.
    
    Either SoundScape or Deluxe Music Construction Set can then play
    back all four instruments together.
    
    Note that the Amiga's internal instruments don't sound nearly as
    good as a music synthesizer.  If you are used to listening to a
    Yamaha DX7, don't expect the Amiga to sound like four of them.
        John Sauter

    I also think dmcs has a crude way of getting info into it from midi,
    but would like to check the manual to make sure...
    
    the demo you refer to is on one of the real early fish or amicus
    PD disks...I took the sampled sounds, and transformed them to
    instruments for dmcs (8svx iff format)...many of the dmcs files
    are copyrighted by EA, even though a lot of people distribute them
    with other things...(mvcad3::user0:[amiga.dmcs.???])
    
    on another point (but in the same vein) anyone got a good collection
    of songs!   Would also like to hear more about the dx7 or other
    synths...I think I might like to expand a bit, but I'm no keyboard-ist.
    so getting a better output device might be just the ticket...cost,
    availability, capability, etc.  any info at all...
    
    later...scott.
    

    DMCS comes with several songs, and it is easy to enter more from
    sheet music.  A used DX7 sells for about $1000, but if you are only
    going to play music you can get a non-keyboard sound module for
    considerably less.  As with any music hardware, listen before you
    buy---different people like different things.
    
    I have a DX7, TX802 (new DX7 without keyboard), SRV-2000 (reverb), 
    TX7 (old DX7 without keyboard, out on loan now), SBX-80 (synchronizer) 
    a drum machine and a mixer and 8-track recorder.  Now that I have the
    Amiga I don't have much use for the synchronizer and 8-track.  I got
    the 1812 Overture off the EasyNet (curtesy of Baeder) and rescored it
    for my hardware.  Sounds fine except for the cannons, which could use
    more punch. 
        John Sauter

    If I am using the Amiga instruments, how many can I play at the
    same time?
    
     Also, can you give me some idea of storage requirements? How many
    bytes, for 8 bars of x numbers of instruments?
    
     For example, how much storage does your version of the 1812 overture
    require.
    
    			Gregg

    The 1812 Overture will JUST squeak into a 512K machine if you don't
    load Workbench.  Just CTRL-D to stop the startup-sequence from
    executing, and run DMusic directly from the CLI.
    
    Ed.

    re: .7
    
    This sounds nice.  Is there a PD/Sharware player that will play
    1812?  At this time I have no interest in going back to writing
    music, but I do like to listen to it.  Not only that but I like
    to show off AMI's capabilities.  I do have a player called PLAY
    (ala PLAY.PAK), will this fill the bill or do I need something else?
    
    
    Curious.
    Bob.
    

    1812 requires Deluxe Music to play.  To date, ther are no DMCS players
    that I know of.
    
    As an experiment, I once saved 1812 (with DMSC) as an SMUS file
    for playback thru Sonix.  For some reason, all the instruments came
    out sounding flat when played back thru Sonix.  The SMUS format
    seemed to truncate files larger than 24K.
    
    So, in theory, someone could upload an SMUS version of 1812 which
    PLAY (Play.pak) would play, but it would sound lousy.