"Music 64" (1984)

Commie_User · Post by **Commie_User** » 03/08/2011 - 18:06

Another early attempt to bring the magic of SID composition to the masses. To my mind it failed but there is a modest saving grace.

One more Ebay win which I uploaded, though just for completeness in this case:

http://www.Leftiness.org/Music_64.zip

In common with others of the era, this utility was written in BASIC. Loading speed was dragged to a crawl with no fastloader, so I didn't bother TAPSERVing the entire tape. The main program was converted to PRG whilst only the song file was directly compiled from tape. Both loading speed and upload file size was reduced.

The interface is terrible. The tedious idea is to type your composition, note by note, in silence. You're supposed to treat it as a simple musical word processor, the approach to computer-aided composition at the time, though there is no real instruction manual - nor any way I found to get past entering the first note's data. The principle may be OK with sophisticated tracker software, but not with a crude program written with kids in mind.

However, it does have the sample Entertainer music to commend it. Load it in and adjust the basic playback parameters to squeeze out what little instantly available sampling potential there is. You can isolate the channels, play with the speed and adjust the voice presets.

And if anybody feels like writing an applet to convert choice SID files to work with this thing, we could recycle ourselves a rudimentary SIDplayer out of this white elephant!

Chris Abbott · Post by **Chris Abbott** » 03/08/2011 - 21:21

Remember that Commodore music cartridge that you had to program like Basic?

Commie_User · Post by **Commie_User** » 03/08/2011 - 21:36

I can't say I have it immediately to mind. But even if you did have to program the tune, it's still one up over this tape. If you're prepared to sit and type in your tune then at least an OS-style thing could give you proper control.

If I was going to 'type' my tune using a simple interface I would rather use something like Advanced Music Studio. You would get the proper notation screen and everything.

http://www.leftiness.org/AMS.htm

Chris Abbott · Post by **Chris Abbott** » 03/08/2011 - 21:40

It was released by Commodore themselves, and was one of the earliest cartridges for the C64. I'm talking Jupiter lander, International Soccer old

Chris Abbott · Post by **Chris Abbott** » 03/08/2011 - 21:40

I used AMS to compose a piece of game music for the BBC Master Compact: the programmer of that had written a compiler for its output. ("By Fair Means or Foul").

Commie_User · Post by **Commie_User** » 03/08/2011 - 23:20

You may or may not be thinking of Music Master: http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/i ... master.php

Though I did find an old post of mine whilst Googling for it: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7404

merman · Post by **merman** » 04/08/2011 - 8:02

There's one piece of Commodore music software I haven't been able to find - Pro-Synth, which was supposed to have MIDI capabilities.

Chris Abbott · Post by **Chris Abbott** » 04/08/2011 - 9:05

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=27457

Commie_User · Post by **Commie_User** » 04/08/2011 - 11:20

That's not too bad Chris. Thanks for putting it up. A few nice rudimentary sounds and an interesting piece of history. I'm not so hot on the early ones as the programmers were still pretty much at the start of their own learning curves.

Of course I prefer later offerings, particularly ones which are overlay-compatible: http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=52458

Or when I want some tunes on housework day , great music which plays itself: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/michael.braisher/B.TAP

http://www.leftiness.org/Records.htm

Commie_User · Post by **Commie_User** » 04/08/2011 - 11:41

merman wrote:There's one piece of Commodore music software I haven't been able to find - Pro-Synth, which was supposed to have MIDI capabilities.

I can't find that either, but I can find an upgraded VSTi: http://www.kvraudio.com/get/2712.html

In one post or other I typed a short list of my favourite C64 VSTi, which included Plogue Chiptunes and other greats.

For the authentic experience you can always try M64: http://c64music.blogspot.com/2005/08/m6 ... odule.html
(And here's the thing ready-compiled to disk: http://www.dustybin.org.uk/M64.D64 , quick instructions: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/michael.br ... kstart.txt , website: http://gallium.prg.dtu.dk/anyware/ )

A superior little program. There's a command line interface but this one's actually good. Or you could try MYMIDI: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/michael.br ... MYMIDI.D64

...or even MSSIAH:

"Music 64" (1984)

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