Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ub!dsinc!bagate!cbmvax!cbmehq!cbmger!peterk
From: peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: a new music standard
Message-ID: <558@cbmger.UUCP>
Date: 1 Nov 90 15:11:06 GMT
References: <35126@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Reply-To: peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY)
Organization: Commodore Bueromaschinen GmbH, West Germany
Lines: 44

In article <35126@nigel.ee.udel.edu> S36666WB%ETSUACAD.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu (Brian Wright) writes:
>On 31 Oct 90 14:26:52 GMT you said:
>>
>>                SO WHAT IS MY POINT?
>>I think that there should be a new standard for songs that resembles
>>the format that the SoundTracker modules are in.  It will offer higher
>>quality music, allow more people to become musicians, and be easy to
>>play.  The main point is that the quality of the music will be a lot
>>higher.
>
>Hear! Hear!  Yes!  Si!  Oui!  Da!  I agree 100%  The mod. files are becoming
>quite abundant compared to SMUS files.  There has to be some kind of a
>synthesized type sound included in the file format so that, when available,
>we are not stuck with samples only.  It might be wise to agree on a standard
>.mod and song file format because of the variations in each of the successive
>ST type programs.

Well, I don't know about the insides of the mod format.
But I think it would be wise to keep the concept of IFF up.
If you look into it, you realize that the 8SVX IFF already has
many of the needed components for this type of data file.
And for the real score you still can use SMUS.

Perhaps this could be evolved a bit. 8SVX is until now more a
single sample than a whole piece of music. So how about defining
some new chunk types to expand the abilities of 8SVX? This could
be discussed here in public, and when it is settled it should be
presented to CATS (probably Carolyn Scheppner) as a proposal to
include it into the official IFF standard. IFF has been such a
tremendous benefit for the Amiga world that you should stick to it.

So, what sort of chunks could be needed? Sorry, I don't know in
which way ST/NT store their data, but one can guess:
You need a SMUS like way to store the score with all its changings
on the fly. Probably it would be advantegeous to compress informations
in a way that you can easily build loops (also nested) and generally
repetitions. Some more proposals?

You see, in a way like this, the powerful IFF concept could be used
to also meet the needs of newly evolved topics.

-- 
Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel  // E-Mail to  \\  Only my personal opinions... 
Commodore Frankfurt, Germany  \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk