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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-lcc!well!ewhac
From: ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: SONIX (was Re: Amiga drive noise)
Message-ID: <2990@well.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-May-87 02:22:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: well.2990
Posted: Mon May  4 02:22:46 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 5-May-87 00:43:34 EDT
References: <3501@gitpyr.gatech.EDU> <4688@utcsri.UUCP> <2250@tekgvs.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab)
Distribution: world
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 85

[ Single-tasking?  Just say no! ]

In article <2250@tekgvs.TEK.COM> jerem@tekgvs.UUCP (Jere Marrs) writes:
>	That is most interesting. I just received two disks from Aegis
>Development (SONIX, a wonderful program!) and I placed them in my external
>	      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
	Really?  You think so?  Hrmph.

	Here are some of the things I perceive to be shortcomings in the
program.  I've used it for about a total of three hours.

	o No 1/32 notes.
	o No "Note time expand" feature (to compensate for above).
	o No triplets.
	o No slurs.  (Can be faked in instruments, though.)
	o No *TRUE* ties.
	o No measure counter during music play.  This makes it difficult
	  to find where the bugs are in your score.
	o Score doesn't scroll during music play.
	o All songs on the data disk sound terrible (subjective).

	Conversely, here are things about SONIX that I think are good:

	o EXCELLENT manual (with index).
	o Music doesn't falter, no matter what else is going on.
	o FM synth in software.
	o The song on the boot disk.
	o Substitutes cleaned-up default font ("clean") on startup.

	However, I can't get past the lack of 1/32 notes.  I have at least
two scores with loads of them that I've wanted on the Amiga for ages.  And I
*still* can't plug them in.

FLAME_ON

	The lack of decent music software for the Amiga is inexcusable.  I
have here a program for my poor old 2MHz 8080-based SOL-20 that does
three-voice music, and is more powerful than many currently available music
programs for nearly all machines.

	Will Harvey has a lot to answer for.  Unless someone did it before
him, he created the first commercially available music program that let you
place notes on the score.  Easily, the most tedious method imaginable for
entering music, especially on a computer.  Come on!  Computers are
*supposed* to make things easier for us.

	My dinky SOL-20 music program can do:

	o 1/64 notes
	o Triplets
	o Note articulation (stacatto, etc.)
	o Arbitrary key signature
	o Independent transposition of voices
	o Arbitrary repeats of any part
	o Generalized dotted notes
	o Frighteningly simple entry method (subjective)

	Now, I will grant you that the music "source" code looks like
transmission line noise to the uninitiated obsever, and that the sound
quality is not wonderful (what do you want from the INTE buss line?).  But
the point is, my music program is *TEN YEARS OLD*, and still beats the
stuffing out of many other so-called "professional" music systems, feature
for feature.  What's more, this ten-year-old program will run in **4K OF
MEMORY!!**

	So.  Am I living in the dark ages?  Am I expecting too much?  Should
I go beat my head against a wall?  Or should I translate this program to the
Amiga myself?

	Someone write a good music program.  Please.  I have a number of
scores I want to move over.

FLAME_OFF

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