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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!munnari!mb
From: mb@munnari.oz (Michael Bednarek)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: DMCS..Not exactly standard.
Message-ID: <1717@munnari.oz>
Date: Mon, 22-Jun-87 21:43:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: munnari.1717
Posted: Mon Jun 22 21:43:15 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Jun-87 07:25:40 EDT
References: <769@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Reply-To: mb@munnari.munnari.oz.au (Michael Bednarek)
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga
Distribution: world
Organization: I.A.E.S.R., Melbourne University
Lines: 61
Keywords: DMCS, SONIX, SMUS, music

In article <769@gryphon.CTS.COM> jdm@pnet02.CTS.COM (John Mesiavech) writes:
>                  Now, DMCS CAN write out SMUS files..It's just that many
>people with DMCS don't bother to use the special menu selection "Save as SMUS
>file" when savig their work in DMCS.

I'll strongly discourage people from saving their scores as SMUS files.
You might be in for a big surprise when you re-load them.
 
In article <3702@spool.WISC.EDU> derek@speedy.WISC.EDU (Derek Zahn) wrote:
>I think it is great that there are IFF standards (SMUS and 8SVX) for music.

ONLY IF IT IS POSSIBLE TO FOLLOW THOSE STANDARS. IT IS DIFFICULT TO DO SO
IF THEY ARE NOT PUBLISHED.

>This means (theoretically) that people can trade music back and forth on
>bulletin boards and whatnot as freely as they do IFF pictures.  Supposedly.
>However, the only music files I have seen are in "DMCS" format.  Is this
>SMUS?  If so, either I am stupid or DMCS does not use "standard" SMUS or the
>public domain SMUS players on a Fred Fish disk do not work properly (or
>some combination thereof).

The BBS of the AUG Melbourne has a section for scores. It contains only
DMCS or SONIX files. For the reasons, see below. 
 
In article <8706200548.AA18900@ingres.Berkeley.EDU> 
           hatcher@INGRES.BERKELEY.EDU (Doug Merritt) wrote:
>DMCS supports two formats: IFF SMUS and its own private IFF DMCS format. The
>latter is an unpublished IFF format (which is just crying to be reverse
>engineered). Therefore SMUS players will not understand DMCS format files.
> [...]
>Sonix produces standard IFF SMUS files except that there are chunks
>named SNX1 in them. As far as I know the contents of such chunks are
>unpublished, but the rest of the file should be playable by any
>SMUS player (IFF file readers are supposed to ignore unknown chunk types
>rather than breaking). I haven't tried this, though.

HA! DMCS can't even play SMUS files which it has created itself!
Nor can either of the published SMUS players (Fish #58, by J.Hodgson).

Four scores which demonstrate this are available on request.
(Graceland, Under African Skies, Homeless, Diamonds On The Soles of Her Shoes)

Also, you might like to try to store "Debussy 1st Arabesque" (on the DMCS
disk) as a SMUS file and load it again. Look (and hear) the instrumentation
at bar 95.

Generally, SMUS files are often played too slow, tempo changes in the
original score confuse any SMUS player considerably.
And if you think about it, do you really expect that a file of 2000 bytes
reproduces music faithfully which is stored in 20000 bytes as DMCS file?

If DMCS and SONIX are the state of the art in Music software on the Amiga,
we have a lot to look forward to.

Frustratedly,

Michael Bednarek	(mb@munnari.oz.au | ...seismo.CSS.GOV!munnari!mb)
u3369429@{murdu.oz.au | ucsvc.dn.mu.oz.au}
...seismo.CSS.GOV!munnari!{murdu.oz | ucsvc.dn.mu.oz}!u3369429

"POST NO BILLS."