> aaargh! PLEASE forget about midifiles!!!!!!! > > Playing a midifile on a moonsound is the worst idea in the history of bad > ideas! [...] Anyway, even on mid/high-end keyboards, midifiles > sound dull. Who the hell needs that 'gunshot' or that insane 'bird tweet', > not to say that the 'fretnoise' sounds like an old granny with breathing > problems. You have to thank Roland for this stupid setup, it was their > idea! :)
Heh, but now I can't play midi-files at all. Say (hypothetical situation), I download a midi file off the web with... Uzix or something. Currently, I can't play it on my msx at all!! (ok, ok, that's a big loss :)). Anyways, it's still better to be able to at least listen to them, even though they might sound like shit. I know, I know, it's indeed more of a practical view on the situation that a composer's, but alas, it was the first that came to mind 'cause the MoonSound *has* got a midi sample set and I've wondered and tried in the past why there still weren't any programs utilizing it. > 24 wave channels, playing ROM and RAM samples. Yeah well, the initial > release should have had the full 512kb, now we're stuck to 128kb as not > everyone has 512kb.. (and downsampling isn't an option as many samples > probably are already 11khz/8bit :) I can guarantee that 24 wavechannels > are far enough channels for most of our tunes, although it (or mbwave ??) > lacks volume-ramping (meaning that you hear ticks between notes on the same > channel). Voltage-ramping sounds great, and 24 channels are definately enough imho. However because some of the limitations of MoonBlaster composers sometimes have to use two sets of channels alternatingly so that they can in the meantime make some new settings on the other one... > Unfortunately there's a number of limits in mbwave whichs prevents good > voicecontrol; (based on the version I used some months ago, didn't use it > much lately) unable to make more instruments out of 1 sample, bad frequency > tables (try to copy some ROM strings to it, you can't get it in-tune!) and > some minor things. Imho, frequency tables shouldn't be used at all. Just calculate the frequencies, based on a 'free' base frequency, live in the editor (if that's not feasible on a Z80 you can also calculate them in advance everytime a note is entered - compass 2 uses this technique aswell for super-fast assembling), and render them right into the erm, what was it called, 'user'-mode file for fast replaying outside for meridian (provided there even is a standalone replayer). That'll make the possible frequencies much more flexible, will get rid of huge frequency tables in the replayer, and will also be much faster to play (at least, if the frequencies are saved in the opl4's format). Ofcourse the files will get a little bigger, but that's not really a problem I think. Componists also don't consider the amount of used channels to reduce file size and processor time, do they? (ok, they might :)) This, especially the saving of the frequencies in opl4-ready format, which doesn't really make sense if you're not looking for performance, could ofcourse also be done by an external converter and a seperate replayer. > FM: FM rules! Actually I think I'd use FM rather than Wave :) With FM you > can polish and tweak until it's right, but above all: it doesn't sound > lo-fi! FM-strings/pads can sound better than those in the ROM. The ultimate > pattern-editor has 24 wave and 18 FM together. I can't agree more. That's something I always wanted in MBWAVE. You see, I think most coders for MSX have at some point gotten the strong urge to create a better alternative. At least, I know I did, and a lot of people on #msx aswell. However, no-one's ever really gotten to it (in my case, because I've had some troubles with a piece of code playing samples on the OPL4 in the past, so now I'm scared of it :)), and that's really a shame because a lot can be improved. And that's why it would be awesome if finally someone would go through with it! > -> The most important rule to remember is: better a good synthetic sound > than a bad pcm sample. <- > > darn, it's past 00:30 > > anyway, it would be great if meridian could be the package we're w8ing for > since 1994 :) Hehehe :) Yup, definately. ~Grauw _______________________________________________ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
