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From: tynor@gitpyr.UUCP (Steve Tynor)
Newsgroups: net.music.synth
Subject: Re: midi setup
Message-ID: <967@gitpyr.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Nov-85 11:24:02 EST
Article-I.D.: gitpyr.967
Posted: Fri Nov  1 11:24:02 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Nov-85 04:55:48 EST
References: <1145@decwrl.UUCP> <440@unc.unc.UUCP>
Reply-To: tynor@gitpyr.UUCP (Steve Tynor)
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Lines: 46
Keywords: wish list

In article <440@unc.unc.UUCP> gibson@unc.UUCP (Bill Gibson) writes:
>> Subject: what's the minimum cost of a good MANY-track set-up?
>>
>>	What I want - MANY tracks of digital-sampled instruments.
>> The ability to mimic a decent sized orchestra.  Screen/music-notation
>> oriented editor. And be capable of storing long/dense sequences.
>> MANY = at LEAST 32 tracks.
>
>	Go to the Florida State Music Department and beg for time on their
>university machine (I think it's a big CDC) and associated custom sound
>hardware. They were doing this sort of stuff around 1980, so they may still 
>be ahead of the average Synclavier-equipped studio.

This is the PLATO synthesizer, developed at the University Of Illinois.  It
(in it's simplest form) is a 16 voice (oscillator) instrument with screen 
notation and a very nice editor.  I worked on the one up at Illinois, and 
while the editing features are great, the sound falls short of orchestral 
mimicry. In order to do FM or additive synthesis you use up 2 (or more)
oscillators...

>	"Mimicry of a decent-sized orchestra" depends on how accurate you
>want the mimicry to be. Hard-to-distinguish mimicry will probably remain
>astronomically expensive for several years. The next couple of generations
>of sampling hardware should allow different samples to be played from
>different MIDI channels or different keyboard split areas. This is necessary
>for orchestal-style works, unless you have Lots of tape tracks. But Real
>Orchestra Music is very complex (in terms of slightly shifting frequencies,
>harmonic content, and tempo variation) and "good" simulations probably would
>require hours on large mainframes. I think this is done at the research center
>in Paris.

Take a listen to Walter (sorry Wendy) Carlos's Digital Moonscapes.  It's
recorded entirely on the DK SYNERGY and GDS synthesizers.  It's about as
orchestra like as I've heard and the SYNERGY is basically just a Z80 + a
custom 16bit waveform processor.  Also, the price falls far short of what
I'd call 'mainframe' prices: ~$5-6000.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it.
                     
    Steve Tynor
    Georgia Instutute of Technology

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