gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor) (06/14/91)
In article <53955@apple.Apple.COM> mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins) writes: He comments on Brad Garton's article about the music department's denizens picking up firesale cubes.... >If this is so, and if students there are working on >music software, and if they and the university >are willing to provide some of that software for >ftp, I am sure that many NeXT users would be >grateful for the chance to use the software. The >absence of much in the way of commercial music >and MIDI software on the NeXT is ironic and >frustrating. In fact, an enterprising music >student who is also a programmer could conceivably >make some money selling a nice MIDI application >for the NeXT. But Mikel, it's already there. The only twist is that these lovely and oh-so-helpful folks are doing *computer* music as opposed to work that is more MIDI-based. While I, too, would sure like to see MAX or a sequencer show up for the machine [it would appear that the estimable Mr. Zazula in Arizona is working on just such a package], I've managed to download the cmix package [it's on either Purdue or Princeton], unpack it, and then enter the realm of the "eternal tweak loop", where I can take the hooks to my favorite pop records, stretch/slice/dice it out of all recognition, and then fly it around the room until it collides itself and vanishes in a puff of Bert Parks' voice. While there's certainly more ah....useful and musical work to be done, I'm not complaining one bit. It *is* rather computationally intensive, but hey - this is stuff that I could never do on anything but that humungo box at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague. I think I can wait for the MIDI stuff for the moment [particularly because it would appear to be simple boneheaded- ness on the part of a few [ahem] companies whose coda business makes them a trifle cautious and more eager for those "I Been hypMotized" bucks. For now, you can find copies of: cmix csound out there for merely the downloading. If you have the bucks, you can buy the cmusic package from UCSD. David Jaffe seems to have really done a wonderful job of putting together the Concepts stuff for the MusicKit [that's out there to download, too] and given the sources for Ensemble for perusal. I'm sure that someone who wished to should [as Stevenson said, the old sexist] "all be as happy as kings." Oh yeah - that Karplus-Strong stuff that does screaming walls of wailing feedback under cmix is *also* out there and free. Look ma, no guitars, no fret. So hey. Cheer Up. Patience is a virtue, and MIDI ain't the whole universe. With Every Good Wish, Gregory Taylor -- These things slip from the rail of a long terrace. They fall to the street and past it, into the river. And inside me, the airship lifts and swells and people in turn-of-the-century costume laugh with amazement as the loose stonework and our lives fall as the airship rises./Gregory Taylor/Heurikon Corp./608-828-3385