Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    Dr. T's KCS, version 1.6a, supports Amiga internal sounds, and has some
    special support for drum tracks.  Music-X also supports Amiga internal
    sounds, but I haven't had any experience with it (yet!).
        John Sauter

Re: .0

There is a program named "Dynamic Drums" that turns the Amiga into
a drum machine.  It uses the internal voices or midi.  But drums
is all it does.

I know ,I have Dynamic drums too.Great program!
    
    matt
    

    
    It only sends the clock pulse thro the MIDI, nothing else though.
                                                
    				Ian T.

    A little off the beaten path, but is that an Amiga 500 featured at
    the start of the Paula Abdul video "Cold Hearted"? If so, its 
    "very nice" :-)
						-Dom

    (Can anybody identify which music program they're running?)

    MUSIC GALORE
    
    
    Just a short note to everyone concerned with Amiga music.  My name is
    Matt and I am a new member to the company.  Have you guys ever heard of
    a music program called Soundtracker.....?   If the answer is no then I
    will give you a brief outline of what it does.
    
    The program is on eight disks and it takes FULL advantage of Paula, 
    the program comes with around 120 songs,  400 - 500 samples and much
    much more...........
    
    P.S. I have a friend who runs a shop in the South of England,  so if
    anyone wants any information on forthcoming releases,  just mail me 
    and I will let you know......
    
    Matt 
    
    P.P.S   If there are any other problems with the AMIGA side of things
    just let me know.
    
    

    Wow! Finally another music program that uses besides sonix and DMCS...I
    love to to make music with the internal sounds!!
    
    about that paula abduul video...I have seen it hundreds of times
    cause I have MTV..I always thought it was a ST...I will pay closer
    attention next time
    
    matt
    

    Matt,
    
    Call me on 7774 6220 and we'll have a chat about soundtracker o.k.
    

Many of the really nice amiga demos that I have seen from Europe (Wildcopper
etc) have had really nice sounding soundtracks. In poking around in some of
the binary files, I have seen reference to SOUNDTRACKER. Is Soundtracker
something that is only available in Europe? Can we get some more discussion
of it here in this note?

Thanks,
Frank

    I create metal music in my band I play guitar and I use dynamic
    drums for drums we dont have much of a good bass player so  what
    would be nice is if soundtrack would be as easy to have drums as
    dynamic drums.. Atleast esier then sonix. And have a bass instrument
    for the bass line. It is to hard with sonix to make really good
    drum parts.
    
    matt
    

    Hello it's Matt again.......
    
    Just a quick note to say that I am still around.  If you want to know
    more about Soundtracker please ring me.  In order to tell you about the
    whole of the program in notes would take me a couple of hours, so as I
    have said call me and I'll tell you about the program over the phone.
    
    Matt.
    
    Dec Vans.  Newbury.  England.
    Tel: 7774 6220
    

    I am experimenting with AmigaVision and am wondering if I should buy
    DMCS but could not find an in-depth review of the program.
    I have a couple of questions... How do you enter your music
    data into the program?  Do you use a midi keyboard, script, or some other
    method?  How about instrument creation?  What type of editing can you
    do with the music entered.  Do you have to know music theory(i.e. do
    you have to be able to read)in order to use the program?  How about
    MIDI support?  Thanks in advance.
    
    Mark

Re .12:

I'm right in the middle of selling my own copy of DMCS, but that may or may not
be relevant to your situation.

The basis of DMCS is "classical notation," in other words staves, notes, and so
forth. You can "hand-copy" a score without having any idea what it means, and
then play it back. DMCS does accept MIDI input and send MIDI output, but that's
not it's forte (pun intended), and even the docs recommend you use a sequencer
for this purpose if you're serious.

I found the note-by-note entry tedious at best. Once a score is entered, editing
it is fairly intuitive (graphic based: select notes, select operation), but
getting all the notes in there in the first place is a drag without a MIDI
keyboard and sequencer. I used Soundscape as a sequencer and transferred the
files into DMCS through SMUS format, which can be read and written by both
programs.

DMCS comes with a fair number of IFF-format instruments, but does not give you
the ability to create new ones. The best program for that purpose, IMHO, is
Synthia II, which lets you create instruments from scratch using virtually all
currently available synthesis techniques. There are also a number of sound
digitizers available, with sound-editing packages provided, as well as a number
of standalone sound editors you can use with any digitized sound sample.

All that said, look at your goals. DMCS is a good choice if you want to learn
classical notation and don't want to go for a big-bucks sequencer which supports
classical notation. If what you want is to compose songs without knowing
music theory and/or notation, however, I'd recommend going with an "entry-level"
sequencer like Tiger Cub or somesuch.

Sounds like you're in for a lot of fun, any which way.


Cheers,
	Bob

    DMCS was the first program I bought with my A500.  So far, I've used it
    to enter notes.  You do it by mouse and click the notes into place.  
    DMCS provides a couple of ways to enter the notes, even by mouse: you
    can click the note directly on the staff or click a piano keyboard and
    it will place them for you.  Both methods are useful in certain cases. 
    I know that DMCS can take notes from a MIDI input, but haven't pursued
    this very far.  (The only results I got was that DMCS placed a note at
    every quarter note position for each note I entered.)  
    
    DMCS comes with a number of instruments.  I'm not familiar with IFF
    sounds (or whatever's available) so I can't say much about the
    mechanisms of creating your own.  I'm sure that you can, somehow.  I
    have Audiomaster II and if I ever get a digitizer, I might be able to
    do it that way.
    
    A full range of editing is possible at any time (cut, paste, etc.) and
    you can create symbols to superimpose on the music.  This is done by
    addition of two font sets and I've edited the fonts myself to provide
    additional symbols and improve the ones that came with it.
    
    Knowing music theory helps you to write, not to use the program.  You
    can still have a lot of fun with it because you can hear what is being
    entered.
    
    It can export SMUS files which can be read by Dr. T's stuff (Copyist,
    etc.)
    
    Tony (using it to arrange big band stuff)
    

	Dr. T's KCS 3.0 cannot read SMUS as far as I can tell.
	Dr. T's Copyist can, however.  Tiger Cub might be able to read SMUS.
	Bars and Pipes can read SMUS with an optional option.
	I used DMCS to enter large amounts of my own complex concert music.
	It was faster than entering notes into KCS via keyboard.
	It is probably faster than playing in from a keyboard and fixing
	everything to be exact to a millisecond, which is what I'm doing now.
	Bars and Pipes is the most up-and-coming sequencer for the Amiga.
	Maybe I will get it.
	Tom	

    Everyone has mentioned products which will 'read' SMUS files, but what
    about writing SMUS.  Since AmigaVision and the Director and about all
    of the programs which playback musci and graphics together only use
    SMUS files, which program other than DMCS and SONIX can create SMUS
    files to use with these programs?  Can Bars and Pipes also create SMUS
    or just read them.  I see that Soundscape can, but I was thinking more
    in the line of products that were alive and well and improving?
    
    Terry
    

I am almost sure Bars & Pipes can convert to SMUS with an optional 
add on tool package. I forgot which one - Music Box B, Multimedia kit or
internal sounds package. The multimedia package is hyped as tools
designed to use with standard Amiga presentation software and includes
a midi recorder and player program among other things. I don't have it,
or all of the details.

BTW, the new B&P pro version has integrated scoring. I'm waiting for my 
upgrade now... BTW2, the old Bars & Pipes is supposed to be discounted 
now that the pro version is out. The optional packages should work with
either though.

Dave

Y'know, my personal take on SMUS is that it will gradually lose importance as
more programs recognize SMF (Standard MIDI File) format. I can't recall if
AmigaVision plays SMF files yet; since I can't generate any as of yet, I haven't
really paid much attention to that so far. As more and more "marketeers" hop on
the multimedia bandwagon, though, I think we're going to see SMF files by the
bazillions, and not too many SMUS files.

Bob

    Thanks for the info on DMCS.  I have Music-X so I hope to convert
    scores back and forth between "X" and DMCS.  AmigaVison's midi support
    is not great, and I have heard that it will handle SMUS better than
    midi thus the inquiry into DMCS.
    
    Bob, you want to sell me your copy of DMCS?   E-mail me if you are
    interested.
    
    Mark
    
    p.s.  AmigaVision only handles 4 midi channels(!?????)

    re .18
    
    > As more and more "marketeers" hop on the multimedia bandwagon,
    > though, I think we're going to see SMF files by the bazillions, 
    > and not too many SMUS files.
 
    I was talking to Keith Doyle about SMF support in the future for The
    Director and he wasn't sure how feasible it was, saying that there was
    a lot of information to process and a lot of things to do to play a 
    Standard Midi File.  He wasn't sure there was enough horsepower left
    over in the Amiga to drive the graphics, etc.
    
    I've noticed that when playing a sequence in Dr. Ts KCS that almost
    anything else I try to do makes a noticable effect in the timing of the
    song.  Maybe I just need a faster CPU since I only have a 68010 (CMI).
    
    Gold Disk's showmaker is support to play SMF, but who knows if that
    will ever hit the streets.  I'll like to see a demo of the Bars and
    Pipes multimedia kit capability and see if they have taken enough
    overhead out from a full blow sequencer like Dr. Ts to be able to play
    a SMF and do an animation at the same time.
    
    I agree that SMUS should die, then even in DMCS, when you save out to
    SMUS format you loose a lot of what you spent a heck of a long time
    putting in.  
    
    Terry
    

Re .19:

I think you're right about required power for multimedia; my guess would be that
intelligent preloading to the max internal memory capabilities would be key for
slick audio/animation combos.

One good piece of news is that SMF is pretty full-featured compared to SMUS.
F'rinstance, time isn't limited to "classical" intervals, but is typically at
least 96 PPQN (parts per quarter note) resolution these days. Also, SMF files
can contain lyrics, copyright notices, introductory text, instrument names for
each channel (dynamically redefinable, if I remember right), and prolly lots
more goodies which don't happen to occur to me just now.

Of course, most software out there doesn't *support* all these hooks just yet,
and when/if they do, multimedia programs had darned well better get rid of most
of it before the timing crunch starts! Ah, well, life will be *so* much easier
for us software types when the silicon boys give us megamips to play with!

Cheers,
	Bob