Music
10 messages in this thread
I'm looking for a music program that will allow me to type in musical
scores via the keyboard, and a program that will enable me to create music
instruments from scratch. It need not be anything sofistocated since I
would just like to re-create my favorite tunes on my Amiga.
Chris,
Sonix, from OXXI/AEgis, or Deluxe Music Construction Set, from
Electronic Arts, would probably be what you need. Sonix is a bit more
limited than DMCS, but DMCS is buggy, and has not been updated in a *long*
time. Both use standard musical notation to write scores. Sonix will let
you create "algorythmic" instruments, or use sampled sounds. I'm not sure
about DMCS, but I think you have to use a separate program to create the
instruments. (I don't have DMCS, so I could very easily be wrong on that
point.)
Hope this helps.
–dds
Thanks for the help. I have SONIX, but I find it rather annoying having
to flip around the different screens just to load an instrument and then
use it. Also, I can't figure out how to tie notes together other than them
being split between each segment (sorry, I'm not too familiar with music
jargon!). Actually, I was looking for a PD version. A BBS close to me has
MED, so I'll give it a try.
Chris,
Yeah, I'm not fond of screen switching simply to load instruments
either. Nor am I particularly fond of the menu layout. The "Screens" menu
item should be somewhere to the right of the "Project" item. I keep
pulling down "Screens" when I want to quit. :-/
Ties are generated by Sonix automatically as you enter notes. I've
never been able to find any way to manually control that function, either.
(BTW, the "segments" you refer to are called "measures".) IMO, Sonix needs
a *lot* of work to make it a full traditional music notation editor.
As far as PD goes, I guess MED 3.0 is probably the way to go. I've
never tried it, though. I found that all the SoundTracker/NoiseTracker
clones I tried simply froze up my machine, so I gave up on 'em.
–dds
I've long wondered why nobody has stepped in with other music notation
style programs to compete against Sonix and DMCS. It's a perfect niche
awating a product.
BTW… MED *3.0*? Has there been another update we don't have here? If
so, and you have it, could you upload it? Thanks.
–>Steve Bennett
Steve,
No, I don't have v3.0. However, I think it's on ab20.larc.nasa.gov
(the Internet archive site for the Amiga sources and binaries newsgroups).
I'll see if I can't get a hold of it and upload it here.
I don't know why nobody's created a high quality native Amiga music
program. Certainly it's needed. Heck, I'd like to see a program that
pushed the limits of the IFF FORM SMUS, something that neither DMCS nor
Sonix do. Maybe the music programmers are all busy with MIDI programming?
–dds
Sonix and DMCS are two programs you might be able to use. They're mostly
mouse oriented with notes on staves. Sonix doesn't support some common
musical features (triplets, slurs) but is easier to use, less buggy, and
has a musical instrument synthesizer which you can use to create
instruments. DMCS supports more features but is limited to sampled sounds
(you can either record these with a sound sampler, or make them using a
program called Synthia) and has some annoying bugs, and doesn't really
support a hard disk.
If you don't care about music notation, you might want to look at MED,
here in LIB 7, which is a totally different type of music program. It also
uses only sampled sounds, and it's notation is quite weird, but you can get
some very impressive music out of it.
–>Steve Bennett
I'm going to download MED from a local BBS. I'll see what it is like.
I'm mainly interested in typing in music scores (some old rock classic
sheet music I have lying around). Thanks for the help.
Just a comment after reading some of the replies. My father, who is rather
unsophisticated with music and computers, started with an Amiga 500 and
DMCS and has done a TREMENDOUS amount of typing in (you can also play into
this program from a keyboard one note at a time) with DMCS and really loves
it. He has since acquired about three different synths and sound expanders
to play his music. He has transcribed many many pieces and currently has
transcribed an entire book of famous piano arrangements, revoiced many etc.
He, after the learning curve, has had absolutely no real problems with
DMCS, finding the transcribing goes very fast once it is learned. I have
both DMCS and several sequencers (Barss&Pipes, MRS and Soundscape) and with
Soundscape could play in at regular speed and transfer to DMCS but this
does not always work. Am hoping to do better once I get SMoose to
interface. However I feel that DMCS is still a very very good program for
the nonprofessional, and with a small synthesizer you can play the many PD
instruments for DMCS as well as your synthesizer.
As I said, both myself and especially my dad are novices and have gotten
huge enjoyment from this program. I would not like to see it put down too
much, although an upgrade with perhaps a very simple real-time sequencer
built in would be nice.
– via Whap!
If I can't find any PD music program, I'll consider DMCS. I believe it
has been around for a while. Perhaps I can find it lying around in a
"Gotta-Sell-These-Eventually" bin at a computer store.