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1993-12-02
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Apparently-To: john.smith@gravis.com
GUS Musician's Digest Thu, 2 Dec 93 3:40 Volume 3: Issue 2
Today's Topics:
3rd National Bank of Patches
Answers to Digest #1
Bank Switching
cakewalk 2.0
GUS Musician's Digest V3 #1 (2 msgs)
midi file format
MIDI Sequencer
NMI problem SOLVED !!! (maybe it works for you too !!)
Pitchbend_and_other_controllers
Where is GUSDELAY?
Standard Info:
- Meta-info about the GUS can be found at the end of the Digest.
- Before you ask a question, please READ THE FAQ.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 01 Dec 93 09:15:41 EST
From: "Eric Bell, Howling Dog Systems" <71333.2166@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: 3rd National Bank of Patches
> Now my question is how can I switch from bank 0 to e.g. bank 8.
> Is the update of Power Chords Pro the only soft that supports
> bank switching ?
I don't know of any others.
Just to make it all clear:
A new version of Power Chords Pro (2.0.02) will be sent to all registered
users. It contains an UltraSound Options dialog box which displays available
patch memory, and has two boxes in it. One to set the melodic bank number, and
one to set the drum bank number.
When working with the latest Windows drivers (dated October or later) it will
handle different banks of patches. These banks are outlined in the ULTRASND.INI
file.
The bank information is not saved with the song file, because the banks depend
on the local vagaries of the INI file.
Its way cool because, you can load a song and play it, and then in one simple
easy operation switch all the drum sounds to TR808 (for example).
The next question is... how do we ship a song file with a couple of custom
patches and then be able to quickly and efficiently install the song and play
it with minimum hassle for the users?
Eric
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 1993 11:55:00 GMT
From: Clarke Brunt <CLARKE@lsl.co.uk>
Subject: Answers to Digest #1
> I am new to midi and would like to know if midi cables are just 5-pin
> audio cables.
I'm not sure. See the diagram in the FAQ. All you want is pins 4 and 5
connected to the equivalent at the other end for the signal, and pins 2
connected as ground. Two other pins aren't used. Test out an audio cable
with a connectivity tester.
> MIDI File Format
I'm sure we'd appreciate having MIDI File info on the archive - people
often ask. Not everyone can accept PostScript, so ordinary text is
needed as well.
> Does anyone know of a MIDI Sequencer or anything that will print out music
> in any form whatsoever
Most of the ones that you pay out good money for will (so that excludes
MIDISoft Recording Session, WinJammer, and the demo version of CakeWalk
for Windows). I haven't got one myself and it wouldn't be fair to name
just the ones that I have heard of.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 08:37:48 EST
From: "Burns Fisher, VMS Engineering 01-Dec-1993 0838" <fisher@skylab.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Bank Switching
(Copied to John Smith and tech@gravis.com. Please forward to your driver
people!)
Eric Bell says about his bank switching experiments:
>Here's a bit of elucidation on the patch banking issue - as Clark pointed out,
>folks might think I got the bank stuff to work through MIDI - not the case. I
>got it to work within the scope of our application by passing the bank number
>to the driver with the patch cache call. The bank number is set in Power
>Chords Pro through a dialog box.
This seems really broken to me. According to my reading of the Microsoft spec,
the patch caching call is simply to improve performance by pre-loading patches
into sound cards like the GUS. It should not have any semantic meaning. It
should certainly not tell the GUS that from now on Patch Change 1 comes from
bank 10. It should just tell the GUS to load patch 1 from bank 10 against the
possibility that the midi stream asks for it! Otherwise, one simply can't use
multiple banks without a C compiler, or an accomodating person like Eric! And
even then, any MIDI file written by Power Chords would be more-or-less useless,
if the music really depended on the other patch bank.
>I don't know at this point if the driver would respond to any MIDI messages to
>change banks. I'm checking with the author.
I hope there are MIDI messages for bank changing. In an ideal world, I suppose,
a bank change command would be standard, but given that the world is not ideal,
I think a SYSEX command is as close as you can come!
Do I sound like a broken record? Should I ask for a sysex command to load
patches and for auto-patch-loading again as well? :-) Actually, I don't know
why I care, for all the time I have had to do music lately. :-(
Thanks for listening...
Burns
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 18:13:15 EST
From: dmcintyr@muselab.ac.runet.edu
Subject: cakewalk 2.0
OK, I finally got Twelvetone and UPS to pull their heads out of their
collective butts and realize that I did not in fact ever get my upgrade.
So, I finally got it, and got around to installing it...
I remember everyone saying that there was a problem with the GUS + CW 2.0
in that it tries to load the entire drum kit at once. I remember the
solution was to kill all the program changes on channel 10, right?
Well, I selected all the measures, selected Cut, used an event filter, and
hit "nothing" then tagged "Patch 0 - 127" and told it to go. Should that
not have killed all the patch changes? I didn't have time to mess with
it. Looks like I'll have to read the manual.
At first glance I really like the changes (and the new manual is much
bigger, PLUS the pages aren't stuck together with coffee...) but not being
able to load the patches from Cakewalk is really pissing me off.
Sorry I wasn't paying more attention back when everyone was figuring out
how to fix it.
Thanks, someone, anyone, for reminding me of the correct procedure.
I also tried using Interpolate and changing all the Patch 0 - 127 on
channels 10 - 10 to nothing. No avail there either.
--Michael-- << dmcintyr@muselab.ac.runet.edu >>
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 08:26:34 EST
From: "Burns Fisher, VMS Engineering 01-Dec-1993 0827" <fisher@skylab.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Re: GUS Musician's Digest V3 #1
> I'm not sure what the 7407 is, but at the bottom of the schematic it says to
>use the 74LS04 for the inverters (which that symbol is) and I would use the
>7407 for the big triangle with no bubble.
I don't know if all the part numbers are available, but typically "L" in the
middle of a TTL logic chip means "low power", and "S" means "Shottky" which I
think refers the the way the chip is implemented...is "S" faster???). Anyway,
LS should mean low power Shottky, FWIW. It may or may not matter in this
particular case, I don't know.
Burns
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1993 8:58:10 -0500 (EST)
From: Bryan Cass <BC@VTI.dnet.idx.com>
Subject: Re: GUS Musician's Digest V3 #1
> From: fredh@hpcvusd.cv.hp.com
> Subject: Midi Cables and printing from MidiSoft Recording Session
>
> I am new to midi and would like to know if midi cables are just 5-pin
> audio cables. I've ordered the midi box from gravis and would like
> to have the cables when the box comes in. I see Musician's Friend
> has "MIDI" cables. I also see in the local Radio Shuck some cables
> that are labeled as "audio" cables that have the 5-pin connectors that
> look to be the same size as the midi connectors on my keyboard.
>
> I posted this next question to the general gus list but got no response
> so I'll try here.
>
> I just got my ultrasound card a few days ago. I've fooled around
> with the version of midisoft recording session that comes with
> the card but I haven't found a way to print the music score that is
> displayed. Is there a way to print this score?
>
> Thanks for any info,
>
> Fred Handloser
> fredh@cv.hp.com
> Corvallis, Oregon
>
As far as I know, you cannot print notation from Recording *Session*. You may
be able to print using the upgraded Recording *Studio* (also, see below).
Regarding MIDI cables, I would just go to a music store and buy a real MIDI
cable - they are only a few bucks and you would save yourself the hassle of
buying stuff that doesn't work.
>
> From: gt5543b@prism.gatech.edu (Antonio C. Rodriguez)
> Subject: MIDI Sequencer
>
> Does anyone know of a MIDI Sequencer or anything that will print out music
> in any form whatsoever.
I use MusicPrinter Plus by Temporal Acuity Products (800-426-2673). It prints
very nice quality sheet music (even publication quality on a laser printer!),
accepts MIDI input, and plays the music back through your GUS (using SBOS or
MegaEm) or out a MIDI port; although I prefer saving my compositions into a
MID file and using Midisoft Recording Session's mixer to tweak track volumes
and panning during playback.
Bryan
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 18:41:24 MST
From: dustin@edna.gse.utah.edu (Dustin Caldwell)
Subject: midi file format
Hello,
I have uploaded a report of what the midi file format is and how it works,
along with some utilities to epas.(MIDIFILE.ZIP)
If anyone cannot get to it for whatever reason, let me know and I'll figure
something out.
good luck,
Dustin
dustin@gse.utah.edu
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1993 17:17:27 +1030 (CST)
From: Gavin <SCARMAN@hfrd.dsto.gov.au>
Subject: Re: MIDI Sequencer
>From: gt5543b@prism.gatech.edu (Antonio C. Rodriguez)
>Does anyone know of a MIDI Sequencer or anything that will print out music
>in any form whatsoever.
Commercially speaking, Cakewalk 4 windows, and Encore do. Also there's Music
Printer Plus, and the Copyist. Shareware - haven't heard of any.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 20:09 MET
From: hst@mh.nl (Klaas Hemstra)
Subject: NMI problem SOLVED !!! (maybe it works for you too !!)
Hello everybody with the NMI problem with SBOS (GRAVIS too),
My brother has a motherboard that had (until today) the NMI problem
when loading SBOS (NMI procedure on this PC is disabled).
Today he accidently solved the problem !!!
The motherboard is a ALI-486 motherboard.
He was fiddling around with some jumpers on the motherboard, and found
a jumper for the type of screen adapter. It was a three pin jumper,
where connecting pins 1 & 2 means 'mono' and 2 & 3 means 'color'
adapter.
But he saw NO (repeat NO) jumper on it.
So he though "That is strange... lets put a jumper on it".
When he did that (color screen of course) the NMI procedure was
working !?@?!
I don't see what the screen type has to do with the NMI, and neither
does my brother, but who cares, when you suddenly have your SBOS
running (and MIDI-in works ok too in Windows).
My guess is that the bios (AMI bios by the way) is puzzled by the non
existing screen type, and does not init the NMI correctly, but this is
just a guess...
Maybe this works for you too !!!!
Klaas
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 93 16:49:49 MST
From: rutledge@enuxhb.eas.asu.edu
Subject: Pitchbend_and_other_controllers
Two quotes from recent Digests:
Well, I can't be the only GUSser who has discovered the pitch-bending trick,
can I? In Windows, I can pitch-bend a full octave up or down. In DOS,
playmidi let's me pitch-bend the full range.
This is illustrated with my WESTSIDE.MID which is currently in the submit
directory at epas.
The trick is in using controllers 100 and 101 in combination with controller
6 (which is apparently pitch-bend sensitivity). There maybe a better/easier
way to do this but I haven't found any.
First, you must set contollers 100/101 off, i.e. 0, before you set the
sensitivity. You then set controller 6 to the number of tones you wish the
pitch bend to be sensitive to (>12 is equal to 12 in Windows--still). Then
you must set controllers 100/101 on, i.e. 127 (or whatever max is). When
this sequence is played for a particular channel, the pitch wheel will
then respond with the given sensitivity. Panic (in Cakewalk) will reset this
to the standard 2 semitones, but to reset it during the same sequence you
have to repeat the above and set controller 6 to 2.
I discovered this trick by 'taking apart' one of the JARRE*.MID files because
it was bugging me. I don't know how standard it is, though.
> Date: 17 Nov 93 10:22:32 EST
> From: "Eric Bell, Howling Dog Systems" <71333.2166@CompuServe.COM>
> Subject: pitch bend
>
> >to go from -1 semitone to +1 semitone in units from 0 to 8191. It would be
> > nice if GUS would have a 'settable' pitchbend sensitivity
>
> It does! It's settable via the standard RPN commands for PBS. (pitch bend
> sensitivity).
<end of quotes>
Could somebody explain to a novice how to do this? Is the "secret controller"
method outlined above the same thing, or different? What is the best way
to do it? Contrary to what I have seen here, my experience with Cakewalk
is that the default lets you go up or down only one step, not a whole
octave. I would like to get even an octave out of it.
Also, is there a program to generate controller curves? I would like to
be able to do a good approximate exponential or linear curve without having
to be steady enough with the mouse to draw it freehand in Cake. I always
end up with unintentional humps.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 1993 11:01:10 -0500
From: davidm@marcam.com (David MacMahon)
Subject: Re: Where is GUSDELAY?
Hi,
The current version of GUSDELAY is 0.3. It can be found as
archive.epas.utoronto.ca:/pub/pc/ultrasound/util/dos/gusdly03.zip. This
program turns your GUS into a multi-tapped digital delay unit (currently,
just echo and reverb). See GUSDELAY.TXT (included in the ZIP file) for more
details. This version works, but only works well at one particular sampling
frequency. Which frequency it works well at depends (to a certain degree)
on the speed of your system. With my 25 MHz 386DX it works well at 11025
Hz. I am working on a new version that is MUCH improved (up to 44.1 kHz
stereo with NO clicks or pops) and has many new features (do the words
"Surround Sound" mean anything to you). I have it in pretty decent shape
right now except for this one bug that is driving me CRAZY (I was up until 3
AM this morning trying to figure it out). I think I'm closing in on it,
though, so I should be able to get the new release out RSN(tm) (Real Soon Now).
Dave
David MacMahon
Software Engineer
davidm@marcam.com
------------------------------
End of GUS Musician's Digest V3 #2
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