davidlo@madvax.UUCP (David Lo) (07/14/87)
I am an amateur to the world of computer music.
Lately, I would like to connect a electronic keyboard to my Amiga
through a MIDI device. There are a number of MIDI's around, like
the Mimetics, Gold Hawk, and others. And they have different
list price, so I think they have different features, right ?
My objective is to using a e-keyboard to input some music to
DMCS, or Pro-Midi studio, and mingle with it. This is purely a
hobby.
Is there any people in the know that can help me with my MIDI
selection? I will post a summary when the amount of information
warrants it.
--
David Lo (415)939-2400 /\ o
Varian Instruments, 2700 Mitchell Drive, Walnut Creek, CA 94598 \/
{ptsfa,lll-crg,zehntel,dual,amd,fortune,ista,rtech,csi,normac}varian!davidloronhill@pnet01.CTS.COM (Ronald Hill) (07/17/87)
I would recommend the ECE MIDI interface just because it has a switch on it so
that you can switch between the MIDI and serial ports. This is really
helpful if you have a modem, which I assume you do or else you wouldn't be
able to post you message. Gold Halk has the addition of a drum sync but no
programs that I know of use this.
UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!ronhill
ARPA: crash!pnet01!ronhill@nosc.mil
INET: ronhill@pnet01.CTS.COMwtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) (07/19/87)
Interfacing MIDI divices to an Amiga isn't terribly difficult. The normal serial connector can be used as the basis. The serial.device is programmed to run at 31250 bits/second. The MIDI adapters are really just opto-isolators and a couple of transistors. Some of the fancier models have a dpdt swich so that leads 2 & 3 of the serial port can be switched from MIDI to a standard serial db25 connector. If you are a serious hardware hack, you should be able to build the MIDI interface yourself for about $10. I was a dummy and bought a commercially made box. The going price is about $49 for the commercial MIDI connectors, thus they are on the border of being worth building it yourself. If sufficient interest warrants, I could upload a "how to build" article from one of the local BBSs (no pirates allowed on that one, since its run by the dealer!). Re DMCS: the MIDI support from DMCS is pretty minimal (to say the least), although the results are much more listenable than the yucky aliased amiga bases instruments that come with DMCS. I've got one of the so-called "quiet upgrade" versions, though I'm not sure what rev it's supposed to be. It is still very, very buggy, and one time even wiped the WCS (causing a need to reload kickstart) when I forgot to "cd" to its drive when loading it up. DMCS has the ability to send a packet to ask preset 1-16 to be loaded. The MIDI supervisor chanel is the same as whatever the active channel is. You can not change presets in the middle of a song (boo!). No support for MIDI system exclusive codes. For MIDI input, DMCS is pretty awful, as it doesn't store any key velocity data. It also requires you to do press-n-relase type playing, which is especially obnoxious without any sort of metronome to guide you. What would help make DMCS a real music tool would be to have a staff that served as a midi control track that would allow you to insert system exclusive stuff. Such a feature would need to be coupled to a lookup table so you could enter the system exclusive codes for your synthesizer. DMCS uses the regular serial.device from workbench to talk to the MIDI. DMCS does have the ability to live together with the Pro Midi Studio from Mimetics. The Pro Midi Studio takes care of most of the gripes (or at least some) that I have about DMCS. Since DMCS cost $~100 by the time I paid the fee to get the copyable backup disk, I haven't had the $$ to get the Pro Midi Studio yet, so I've only had superficial exposure playing at the dealer. The mimetics audio digitizer (8 bit) plugs into the game (yuck!) port. I have the Soundscape digitizer that usese the parallel port, and thus seems to not be Mimetics compatible.- oh well. I'll also put in my $0.05 about copy protection since it is now the vogue. I don't like it, and do my best to obtain stuff that I can back up. The most important feature of stuff I buy is being able to call the company to ask questions, which I couldn't do if it were pirate. Companies with good user support (Like Borland in the Pee Cee world) sell tons of copyable programs since users know that if they spend the $$, they know they have easy access to assistance. Unfortunately, EA has had some difficulty in the user support dept., thus many users have probably turned to unsavory practices. Bill (wtm@neoucom.UUCP)