Apple II Music & Sound Conference January 2, 1991 10PM EST Subject: Hints/Tips for creating music with MusicStudio Forum Leader: Joyce Madden (AFL JoyceM) AFL JoyceM MasterTracks disks? Tell me more AFC Eddie Greenwing has issued song disks for just about every program that does GS music MCS, DTune, Mastertracks, and others. Now, of course, it's synthlab. PeaceSign More...... We collected several "data disks" to help support the GS market. AFA Parik I filled out the licensing forms Joyce, will mail them tommorow... 2 weeks AFL JoyceM Great Parik.... AFC Eddie Tell about 'em, Peacesign AFL JoyceM Do you have a catalog, Peace? PeaceSign Yes send for one at...P.O. box 57 Livingston, TN 38570 AFC Eddie Thanks, PeaceSign! PeaceSign Part of them we made...Part we collected. AFL JoyceM You don't by chance have it on disk that you could upload here for our library? PeaceSign Have what? AFL JoyceM Catalog or listings? PeaceSign We don't, but we could. AFC Eddie Good idea, Joyce (as usual!) AFL JoyceM Would help here... :) and help spread info about Greenwing :) AFL JoyceM Okay...let's get started. I have just a few announcements then we can get started with our program. The new MIDI Tool, synthLAB, etc should be here in AMS by the end of next week with a NDA by the infamous AFA Parik. Parik, do you want to tell us a little about your program? AFA Parik uhh, i'm having trouble keeping awake. you better talk. ;0 AFL JoyceM Okay....you all will be surprised with Parik's program. As I said the tool will be here soon. Our program tonight is on creating music with MusicStudio - and we all know that Gene Koh (AFA Gene) is very famous with his great creations for game programs and SoftDisk-GS. Gene, any comments? AFA Parik *quickie* is the FTA XMAS demo up yet? AFA Gene Nope, Parik (not as of 1/1) AFA Gene Well, first I'd like to make a little announcement regarding our forum contest. Ususally we do this on the last chat of the month, but because of the deluge of entries in December we're doing it today. Congrats to GreenWing Software for their "GreenWing Songs Volume 5 - Xmas" - a collection of Christmas tunes for SynthLAB that were very cleanly produced. A worthwhile holiday addition to any software library, and a super way to get our NEW SynthLAB library to a rousing start! :) Congrats to DavidA87, PeaceSign, and DrGore! :) PeaceSign Stay tuned...more to come. AFC Eddie Yeah, Greenwing Guys! AFL JoyceM Thanks....greatly appreciated . DavidA87 Thank-you, it's nice to be liked! AFL JoyceM Thanks, Gene and congrats again to GreenWing. AFL JoyceM Gene, Do you have any comments, suggestions, ideas on how one can create music (good music) with MusicStudio? Hints....etc? AFA Gene Well, hmmm.... let's start with some ideas that were not mentioned during the last chat we had on this topic about 1/2 a year ago. How about =rhythms=? I'd venture to say that if a song has an interesting rhythmic pattern to it, yet it all remains "on the beat" or written in perfect time, it's almost guaranteed to be a success. :) i.e. if the percussion instruments have a very complicated rhythm, make the bass lines SIMPLE... that's the key. AFL JoyceM Gene, you mentioned a song in perfect time....a song example would be what? AFA Gene Yes, sorry I was kinda vague on what I meant by that... couldn't think of a fitting term. Another way to explain what I meant is to say that if while playing the song, the listener can still count out the beats "1-2-3-4," etc., that's what I meant. RobertS204 My question was just regarding when Synthlab would be available on AO? I use Music Studio and don't have any questions at the moment:) AFL JoyceM Hopefully by the end of next week, Robert :) RobertS204 That's good AFA Gene By "perfect time" - Greg, is there a better term for that that I'm forgetting? <== never went to skool for this stuff. %) AFC Eddie Staying on the beat! AFA Gene Gee, I dunno if this helps anyone here, but the Anthrax song "Blood" on Megaforce Records is a SUPER example of what I meant by my last few comments on the "beat." ELECTMUSIC I Think the problem, Gene, is that MStudio is missing the metronome AFL JoyceM Gene, so keeping the baseline simple makes the song(s) 'hear' better? AFA Gene That's right, Joyce, =if= the other rhythm parts are complex, "interesting" enough. - otherwise you have simple 4/4 slop. AFC Eddie Gene, could you outline your process for making songs with MIDI on MS? Using multiple instrument sounds, I mean. ELECTMUSIC I find it hard to play parts into MStudio with a MIDI In. Gene, do you MIDI-In a great deal? AFA Gene Yow.. :) okay.... well there are a number of different ways to use MIDI while writing... Greg, on the "classical remixes" for Softdisk, those are ALL MIDI'ed-in; however, on the "StudioCreations" I sometimes use the MIDI-In for passages such as bass riffs and such within the song structure. I do it all direct. AFC Eddie Do you do it direct or from a sequencer? AFL JoyceM Gene, then how do you overcome the fact that with MIDI-in and MusicStudio you can record on both staffs? AFA Gene As long as the quantizing note value is correct and you stay within reason at the tempo onscreen, you'll be find. I believe so Greg, I've never heard of anyone doing it any other way - no real reason to. Joyce, you're referring to putting "bass riffs" and such into a piece using MIDI In? ELECTMUSIC You have to do it direct, cause MSTudio doesn't except a Midi clock... right? Compositionally speaking... how long did the studio creations take to do? AFL JoyceM Yes, Gene. AirJordan1 I'm bad at making songs! AFC Eddie Do you have a MIDI instrument, Jordan? AFC Eddie Greg, you may be interested to know that in doing some "homework" for tonite's chat, I came across a copy of your first reviews of MusicStudio 2.0 and the Apple MIDI interface! That was back in early 1988! ELECTMUSIC Wow, that was some time ago! Those where the day's .... Eddie DougB5 Hi there! I just tried to make a song with Soundsmith but gave up! :( AirJordan1 Eddie, I do have a MIDI instrument but I can't get it to work. AirJordan1 What is the most updated version of MS? AFA Gene Answering your question Joyce, the key is to use the append function of MS File menu. AFC Eddie Jordan, it's officially 2.0, but about a year ago they issued two new sub-versions. 2.1, and 2.0 GS/OS version. AirJordan1 Eddie, why won't the MIDI instrument work? AFC Eddie How have you connected it? AirJordan1 Its a Ct-670 synthesizer, connected through the Audio Animator by AE. ELECTMUSIC What a shame they won't proceed with developing the new MIDI tool into MStudio AFL JoyceM I agree, Greg. I still think that MusicStudio is the best overall GS music program we have. ELECTMUSIC Air.... you need the external Midi Interface ONLY!!!! AirJordan1 Huh? ELECTMUSIC The AA won't suppport that program AirJordan1 Wait, run that by me? AFC Eddie What slot is your AA in , Jordan? AirJordan1 5 ELECTMUSIC The AA Midi interface will not recognize MStudio AirJordan1 So, how do I get it to work? AFC Eddie Have you tried it with other software? ELECTMUSIC You have to buy an external Midi interface AFL JoyceM You can't, Air - not with MusicStudio. You can complain to AE :) ELECTMUSIC Ie.... Apple's External Interface AirJordan1 No, but I do have Instant Synthesizer... AFL JoyceM Gene, I note that several songs have their 'rests' at the top of the song, why is that? AFA Gene That is a technique that was first used in the song "Hotrays" on the MS Songs and Instruments disk... it allows for freer control of when a note is going to be played, by sort of "graphing" out every 16th note segment of each measure. The rests are there as "placeholders" when no notes are playing. AFC Eddie To allow overlapping notes, right, Gene? AFL JoyceM Is that done before the actual notes are put in? ELECTMUSIC Gene, that takes the place of a Metrenome... sort of a visual metronome ELECTMUSIC Air... are you any clearer on the problem with AAnimator? AFC Eddie Jordan, your best bet might be Diversitune, a great program that allows you to create songs, and the latest version (1.1) supports the Animator. AFA Gene =Exactly=, Greg. :) Not really for overlapping, Eddie, as that can be done simply with the Tracking function. Joyce, yep, it's the first thing I do when I write a new song (from last chat) AFC Eddie Thanks, Gene! AFL JoyceM Great. Thanks, Gene. AFC Eddie I'll have to look up the transcript from the last chat! AFL JoyceM Gene, if you take a simple song, like Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and want to really jazz it up....how would you do that with MusicStudio? AFC Eddie If anyone could do it, it's Gene! AFA Gene Aww, thanks :) Personally, the first thing I would do, if it were in fact twinkle twinkle littler star or another simple and commonly known tune, would be to start from scratch. :) it's easier that way. First, I'd think of a really FUNKY beat and input a few measures or so (maybe a 4-measure block) for the drums onto a "clean pallete, in other words a new file. lotsa stereo effects and such. Then I'd put a simple bass line, perhaps just the root notes of all the chord changes (lots of creativity there, huh? :) in an eighth note ostinato pattern. (big term for just whacking 'em all out. :) Next, i'd use the copy function to copy this phrase over a few times, and finally, add the melody - I'd jazz it up too, kind of like "twink - el, twink - el, little-star " if you know what i mean %) AFC Eddie Yeah, sounds good, Gene. Maybe even a few unusual chord changes too. AFL JoyceM Got it, Gene. Thanks. Hints like that help creat other ideas :) Or play the whole song in diminished chords !!! AFC Eddie :) AFL JoyceM Oh yes...I do have an announcement....AFC Eddie is now an overhead account for AMS. Since Lindsay is spending less and less time online, we decided that Eddie needed the overhead account :) AFC Eddie Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!! AFL JoyceM Lindsay is in agreement and BTW, Lindsay's next release will be the end of January :) AFC Eddie Look forward to Midimate! DanW190 I've wanted to port some stuff from Music Studio over to Synthlab, unfortunately I lack the correct hardware (Two external MIDIs come to mind) Gak, I even went to the trouble of spiffing up a MS sequence, and found the correct instrument for each track, but I realized I lack hardware! AFC Eddie Need an external sequencer, dan AFA Gene Yah, Dan... I had the SAME problem... I had it all set up too (MS ==> MT in my case) and then realized that I had only ONE MIDI interface! DanW190 Right...my friend (way out in Florida) ported some stuff with his friend. Anyone out there wanna do some porting for Gene and me? :) AFC Eddie Sure! DanW190 The Greenwing people do a ton of that... AFA Gene Which reminds me, Greg, ya think I can borrow yer MIDI box someday for some porting? :) DanW190 (you can tell all their stuff is ported..) :( but some of it is quite good...for example, have you tried taking "Somewhere out there" and loading ORCH.bank and then changing track to 3? Harp sounds beautiful. AFA Gene I think the Greenwing stuff is all on board keyboard sequencer ==> SL. I'll lend you mine if you help with my new SL song! ELECTMUSIC Sure... no problem Gene DanW190 Yeah, if anyone wants to port for me, PLEASE let me know, I've got this nice Star Trek:TNG sequence which I'm dying to hear, plus "St. elmos fire" (all are Music studios, but I "touched" them up to sound right...) :) AFC Eddie Send 'em to me, Dan. I'll give it a try. DanW190 THANKS!! :) I will ASAP! AFA Gene Why don't you upload your touched up versions, Dan? We can always use updates on our files. AFC Eddie No promise of success, though! DanW190 Ok, I've just got to find them :) ELECTMUSIC What we need is for someone to take MStudio files and convert them to MIDI File Format. AFL JoyceM Agree, Greg.....hopefully someone will write one:) DanW190 The only thing I think I'll have problems with is porting the drums i.e. Music Studio has a special drum set (each octave is special) as well as Synthlab has it's own special drum kit octave thing-a-ma-jig.. AFA Gene Am I correct in my assumtion that the only way to do this is voice by voice? (i.e set seqencer for "key-on" and then play MS song tracked for one voice)?? AFC Eddie I don't think so, Gene. DanW190 Try taking Test Drive II and using InstA.bnk, change the instruments to...umm...the lead as Analog string, the other lead to something similar to analog string AFC Eddie I've taken all voices from a Mstudio song and put them in my sequencer at once. AFA Gene 8 separate tracks to 8 separate tracks? AFC Eddie Yes. DanW190 well I'll have to post the right settings, TD II sounds cool with insta.. ELECTMUSIC Gene, Slab will preserve all program and channel info on one track as long as that track is set to 0 in Slab DanW190 Eddie, and then you assign each track it's own MIDI track on your sequencer? AFC Eddie Yes. DanW190 Using the track '0' trick on Synthlab is neat, but the problem is this: Users want to experiment with the sounds, so they can get the music to sound just right. People want to change each instrument, however, when using the track '0' trick, people get VERY screwy and unpredictable results... :( AFC Eddie It's easy to do on Musicstudio. Just use the Midi paramaters. ELECTMUSIC No... 8 tracks to one track. I couldn't get my sequencer to stay in total sync with slab for each track AFC Eddie Greg, I'm talking about porting to an external sequencer. AFA Gene Ed, but then how would you do the xfer from sequencer to MasterTracks/SL? AFC Eddie Easy to do with Mastertracks. just record on one track, then Strip Data to as many tracks as you have parts! DanW190 My friends and I got CLOSE on porting SL stuff.. we used two (cough) audio animators and ported from AA midi prog to SL, but the problem was we couldn't keep the tracks in sync :) ELECTMUSIC Of course Lindsay's program will solve that problem as long as the file is in Midi File Format AFL JoyceM Why do you think that happens....track syncs off? DanW190 The only Idea I had to solve that was this(unable to do this from AA, but possible from any other MIDI prog or even Music Studio...) do the following: Create a note at the very beginning of the song, in each track, at the same position. Turn that note to volume 0 (off). Then, turn SL's Key Startt (woops!) or whatever you call it, and then record each track one at a time on different tracks. Since SL senses the 'silent' note being played at the same time, all tracks should sync together.......theoretically.. :) ELECTMUSIC Thats an idea.... AFC Eddie NOt bad... ELECTMUSIC But, Lindsay's program MidiMate will be out soon... and that problem will be solved AFL JoyceM hmmmmm interesting theory....worth the try. Thanks, Dan. DanW190 Cool, I can't wait for that program AFC Eddie Biggest problem with Musicstudio is that you can't record more than one midi track at a time. Onto different insts. AFA Gene Dan, that's EXACTLY what I had all set up for my MS to MT conversion!!!!! but AFA Gene I had only one interface! AFC Eddie Thanks for the great ideas, Gene! DanW190 Nite Joyce! ELECTMUSIC Thanks Gene, nice chat. I always like to hear your ideas on MStudio AFC Eddie Greg, belated thanks for those great '88 reviews! ELECTMUSIC :) AFL JoyceM Thanks....great ideas, Gene.....Dan, etc. ELECTMUSIC I wish I could be writing some on new software AFL JoyceM Thanks all and see you all next week. Good Night. America Online - 1991