[Coco] Utilmuse 3 Manual

Tue Dec 6 14:06:39 EST 2011

Yep, they needed to update midi years ago. A lot of the gear now uses propriorty USB with a similar (but faster) protocol. Then there's USB midi.. no lag on the line but the hardware on bothe ends still stays the old speed. A lot of the problem with the older gear was not the speed of the midi, but the speed of the processors producing and recieving it. If you can play notes faster than 31,250 a second (divided by 32 bits per note on)... then I'll buy tickets for that LOL. From the time you hit a note or the sequencer sends a note... the host decides what to do with it, puts it on the bus, waits for the clock, sends it down the line. Then the reciever gets the note, figures out what it is and when it's supposed to play, does any DSP involved then sends it to the sound engine... you have to remember, those old keyboards had slower processors than the 6809, some even HAD 6809s. The stuff today has full blown computer systems with built in touch screens and blindingly fast. Usually if there's lag now, I find it's in my own system. Usually it's too much junk running in the background. Close all the extras and it clears up. Most of my midi now is done within the box, all contained to this machine. With over 3000 virtual synths and 5000 effects onboard, I rarley go outside the box now. I have transcriptions of Keith Emerson (Emerson Lake and Palmer) playing dual handed 128th notes at 180bps routed through 6 different synths and never a stutter. I guess that's why they never speeded it up. Long cable runs seems to be the cause of some lag but I use 25 foot cables and don't hear any. There was talk at one time of going to optical as well as LAN, but it never happened. The big problem is no manufacturer wants to give up the compatability with their old gear and each one want's their idea to be the standard. On Umuse, I used to bog it down with too many notes at once, but it was the Coco, software and OS9 bogging, not the speed of midi. BTW, you do know you can take the midi out of the coco (bitbanger or interface) and plug it into your PC's soundcard and use it's midi as output? Most soundcards have midi, it's just hidden, Soundblaster comes to mind as well as others. It's routed through the joystick port on the card. You have to have an adapter Joy-2-Midi. It terminates in 2 midi cabes, in/out. You can get them at any music store that sells midi gear. Now that's a thought, a Coco running a quad core PC... LMAO Actually, that's how I transfered all my Coco midi to the PC...

Yep, I've seen the messages in the code to Umuse and Lyra :-)

Bill Pierce
ooogalapasooo at aol.com

-----Original Message-----
From: gene heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com>
To: coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Tue, Dec 6, 2011 11:01 am
Subject: Re: [Coco] Utilmuse 3 Manual

On Tuesday, December 06, 2011 10:25:17 AM Bill Pierce did opine:
> Ultimuse3 added very many features after v4. The list would be pretty
 big. Michael Knudson never added the midi record function and it was
 always just a sequencer/player. The 8.11 version should load your old
 files fine. You'll get a version warning but it loads. It would be best
 then to re-save in the new version. I used Umuse extensively for about
 10 years for recording and live performance and saw it grow to probably
 the most stable midi software for the Coco. If you really need a midi
 recorder for the Coco, you can try finding "Coco Midi (2) (3) (Pro)"
 package by Lester Hands/Speech Systems. I haven't seen it in any of the
 archives but someone may have it. I would love to see it added to the
 archives. I have a 5 1/4 disk of "CoCo Midi Pro" somewhere but have no
 way of copying it as I have no coco or floppy drives (even on my PC). I
 never got to use it because I didn't have a midi interface (required)
 and my coco died about a month after I purchased the software. I was
 wai ting on a midi interface from Glenside UG but something happened to
 the project and they never finished it. I use midi extensively in my
 home studio on my PC still, to control about half my outboard FX gear
 and to compose/sequence backing tracks for singers and solo musicians.
 The capabilities of midi equipment and software these days is amazing.
But it never got away from that slow interface that was basically a current 
oop.  31250 baud precludes getting the note synchronization that folks 
ike Ralph and Fons A. argue about annually on the l.a.d. list, and which I 
ould hear even on keyboards of limited polyphony when being druiven within 
hose limits.  Sort of a Floyd Crammer effect but much faster.  Perhaps the 
ro stuff now uses a master clock byte that has been added to the protocol?  
 don't hear that from a midi drum kit, or perhaps the drummer 
ubconsciously compensates?  Dunno.  My experience at that is somewhat 
imited to listening to a local band a few friends of mine are, jamming on 
riday nights to get their fingers loosened up for Saturday nights when one 
f more of them probably have a gig in a local club.  The fellow I gave my 
hair and keys to at the tv station when I tried to retire is one of them, 
lays a mean bass for instance, and is usually busy picking someplace on 
aturday nights, getting scale or better.  Friday night is his night to jam 
nd do serious damage to a 12 pack.  The IT guy at the tv station usually 
icks guitar, a solid body he built and which was signed by Jimmy Johnson.  
eah, _that_ Jimmy Johnson. His home town is 30 miles north of here. These 
uys can 'make a noise' as good as what you might hear in Nashville on an 
ff night.
The competition between Mike and Lester was legendary in the day, even 
eading to text messages hidden in the code.  But I suppose you knew that. 
) 
> Bill Pierce
 ooogalapasooo at aol.com
Cheers, Gene
- 
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