[LAU] OT: Interesting article on MIDI timing

[Ken Restivo]

On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 02:49:25PM +0000, Folderol wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:14:16 -0800
> Ken Restivo <ken at restivo.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 04:12:31PM -0600, Josh Lawrence wrote:
> > > I found this to be interesting:
> > > 
> > > http://www.velvetacidchrist.com/2010/03/08/sequencing-atari-st-cubase-2-0/
> > > 
> > > (site is pretty heavy on graphics)
> > > 
> > > summary for the lazy:
> > > 
> > > person did a test of various MIDI sequencers on various platforms, the
> > > Atari STe was the winner.
> > > 
> > 
> > Awesome!
> > 
> > I have fond memories of Atari ST's. I had an Atari 1040ST running HybridArts SMPTETrack. It had a greyscale monitor, and I combined it with a Roland MT-32 and an RD-250 piano, and that was my studio for a couple years.
> > 
> > I did a bunch of anal-retentive "masterpeices" on that setup, i.e. this one, which is probably the most prog-rock-like thing I've put out:
> > http://www.archive.org/download/AtmosphericCD1998/12_Spaceman.ogg
> > 
> > -ken
> 
> Very impressive piece of work - quite unlike anything I've heard form
> you before!
> 

Glad you liked it!

I was all of 22 years old when I wrote it. It took months; I edited every single note of it manually. It used up the maximum number of tracks that SMPTETrack supported (40, IIRC?) and every last partial that the MT-32 supported too. A lot of the edits were to economize on partials.

Somewhere I have the original file, a copy of SMPTETrack, and an Atari ST emulator for Linux. IIRC the emulator patches the MIDI output into the ALSA sequencer. At some point, I'll re-render it using LinuxSampler sounds.

Partial screenshot:
http://www.restivo.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/spaceman-color.png

-ken