[Coco] Utilmuse 3 Manual

[Aaron Wolfe]

fwiw, if you have drivewire 4, you can play midi from coco to pc very
easily.  for examples see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frjaHLXz0co

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g721tj7VnJs

dw4 has it's own software synth that supports loading soundfont or dls
files, or can pass through to your soundcard's synth if it has one, or
can pass through to an external midi device if you have one of those.
choosing where the midi goes is as simple as clicking on the device in
a menu.

another unique feature is real time translation between instrument
mappings.  this is useful because lots of the ume files around are
encoded for specific synths that you may not have, especially the
yamaha pss480 (actually used to have one of those).

even though i don't have a pss480, or a casio 540, etc.. I can listen
to songs encoded for them on my general midi hardware by just choosing
which synth I want to translate for in a drop down menu.  dw4 then
rewrites all instrument changes sent to the closest thing general midi
offers.  the end result is usually pretty good.  the translation
profiles are plain text and you can edit them or add your own.

-Aaron





On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Bill Pierce <ooogalapasooo at aol.com> wrote:
>
> 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. Usua
>  lly 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 y
>  ou 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
> -
> There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
> soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> Ed Howdershelt (Author)
> y web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene>
> Everybody is talking about the weather but nobody does anything about it."
> - Mark Twain
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