source file: mills3.txt Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 20:36:03 +0100 Subject: MIDI/Audio wish list From: Prent Rodgers My microtonal MIDI explorations began about 10 years ago on an IBM Music Feature Card, which contained the same chip and fuctions, more or less, as the Yamaha FB01 external box. This chip allowed for the creation of up to 8 voices using a 4 operator FM synthesizer. The sound is cheap and dull by today's standards, but it allowed for very flexible microtonal work. For every note, you sent a system exclusive to indicate the pitch and how many cents to detune it. It had no problem keeping up with very fast passages, even on my 8086 vintage computer driving it. It is a shame that Yamaha dropped support for this format of microtonal support. If there still exists a better sounding sampler or synthesizer that does support this protocol, I would love to hear about it. Here is some Pascal code from the program I wrote to drive the card: WriteToCard(#$f0 + #$43 + #$75 + #$70); { Play all the notes you want for as long as you want } Channel =3D 0; Tone =3D 64; { 0-127 for each of the normal MIDI Notes } Cents =3D 0; { 7 bit 2's complement -64 to +64 } Velocity =3D 64; { normal MIDI velocity data } WritetoCard(Channel,Tone,Cents,Velocity); { When finished, send the following to end the system exclusive } WriteToCard(#$F7); Prent Rodgers Boise, ID Internet: prodgers@us.ibm.com = SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu From: "Paul H. Erlich" Subject: RE: 22TET PostedDate: 09-01-98 20:55:02 SendTo: CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH ReplyTo: tuning@eartha.mills.edu $MessageStorage: 0 $UpdatedBy: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH,CN=Manuel op de Coul/OU=AT/O=EZH RouteServers: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=notesrv1/OU=Server/O=EZH RouteTimes: 09-01-98 20:54:36-09-01-98 20:54:37,09-01-98 20:54:29-09-01-98 20:54:29 DeliveredDate: 09-01-98 20:54:29 Categories: $Revisions: Received: from ns.ezh.nl ([137.174.112.59]) by notesrv2.ezh.nl (Lotus SMTP MTA SMTP v4.6 (462.2 9-3-1997)) with SMTP id C1256587.006D5C85; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 20:55:00 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA15872; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 20:55:02 +0100 Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 20:55:02 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA17702 Received: (qmail 16775 invoked from network); 9 Jan 1998 11:54:54 -0800 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 9 Jan 1998 11:54:54 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu