[rec.music.synth] Help needed on MIDI programming!

sage@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (David Martosko '91) (09/20/89)

Hello,

I am assisting a psychology professor of mine in a project with music
perception and psychoacoustics.  We want to use a Macintosh II system
to trigger MIDI instruments to play, and then record the response times
of experiment subjects to various MIDI-induced sounds.  The trick is
that we want to be able to control things from procedures within a BASIC
or C program.

Does anyone out there have information about C or MIDI (or even, ugh, PASCAL)
toolboxes that are publicly or commercially available?  More specifically,
has anyone found MIDIbasic for the Macintosh (a commercial package)
particularly useful?  I would welcome all suggestions as to where to
turn next.

Please e-mail to the address below.

-David Martosko '91 Dartmouth College

--
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  David Martosko                         E-mail:sage@eleazar.dartmouth.EDU
  Dartmouth College HB 2216               Phone:(603) 643-4347
  Hanover, NH 03755

wcc@omaha1.UUCP (William C Carey) (09/23/89)

Is anyone out there familiar with a book called "CYBERNETIC MUSIC" by
someone calling him/her self Jaxitron (pronounced jazzy-tron perhaps?)?
It contains a wide ranging study of music producing algorithms written in
APL.

Doesn't the Atari ST offer some sort of APL interpreter?

Could it (the APL interpreter) possibly communicate directly with the MIDI port?

All of the examples in the book ( 300+ pages) were designed to print out
a type of music notation on a line printer which someone then converted to
conventional sheet music notation.  The copyright is 1979 I believe, well in
advance of Postscript, MIDI, and so forth.

roger@esquire.UUCP ( r l reid ) (09/26/89)

In article <164@omaha1.UUCP> wcc@omaha1.UUCP (William C Carey) writes:
>
>Is anyone out there familiar with a book called "CYBERNETIC MUSIC" by
>someone calling him/her self Jaxitron (pronounced jazzy-tron perhaps?)?
>It contains a wide ranging study of music producing algorithms written in
>APL.
It was an interesting book, to say the least, but be careful with it.
Even though I don't much know APL, I was able to find extensive
bugs thoughout the book.  This is consistant with TAB Books
apparent policy of publishing books on really interesting subjects
that are so poorly written and proofed that they become useless.]
(c.f. their "Rebuilding Reed Organs")

>Could it (the APL interpreter) possibly communicate directly with the MIDI port?
No doubt it could, assuming such a beast (ST APL) exists.  I found it
more useful to absorb the non-linear approach to composition that
it pushes via APL and try to integrate it into my musical life.
I think the message is more imprtant than the vehicle.

Though honestly, if I had an APL interpreter (and the keyboard to talk
to it!) I'd be tempted to try.  So much music, so little time.
-- 
	       Ro
   roger@esquire.dpw.com
   {phri|cucard}!hombre!cmcl2!esquire!roger
   rlr@woof.columbia.edu

hafer@tubsibr.uucp (Udo Hafermann) (09/26/89)

wcc@omaha1.UUCP (William C Carey) writes:


>Is anyone out there familiar with a book called "CYBERNETIC MUSIC"
>[...] ?  Doesn't the Atari ST offer some sort of APL interpreter?
>Could it (the APL interpreter) possibly communicate directly with the
>MIDI port?

There is APL.68000 from MicroAPL in London (distibuted in the US by
Spencer, I believe), which is a good "first-generation" interpreter.
You can read and write data using the MIDI ports quite simply.
Unfortunately, APL.68000 isn't fast enough for real-time music
applications.  You'd have to write machine-language or C code for
that.

>All of the examples in the book ( 300+ pages) were designed to print out
>a type of music notation on a line printer which someone then converted to
>conventional sheet music notation.  The copyright is 1979 I believe, well in
>advance of Postscript, MIDI, and so forth.

I'd be interested in that book.  Any details how to get it?