Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!steinmetz!uunet!nuchat!sugar!karl
From: karl@sugar.uu.net (Karl Lehenbauer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: limited interoperability of SMUS files
Message-ID: <3192@sugar.uu.net>
Date: 31 Dec 88 08:12:45 GMT
Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston, TX
Lines: 24

Programs that read and write SMUS files are not stellar in their 
interoparability.  For example, the SMUS files written by Soundscape
cause Deluxe Music to get a "Software Error/Task Held."  Examination has 
shown that SoundScape does not write INS1 chunks.  (Trying to play it on 
my SMUS player caused audit code to trip.)  This is legal according to
the spec, but interoperability with DMCS would be as basic a test for a
SMUS file writer (particularly since DMCS can recognize the presence of
Soundscape and install itself in the patch panel) as making sure one's
lores and hires ILBMs work with DPain II (sic).

Another example, DMCS, when asked to write a file in SMUS format, doesn't 
include any dynamic volume events.  This is bogus because they're there in 
some form in the FORM DMCS files and they're defined in the SMUS spec.  EA
just neglected to write them out.  This means I'll either have to reverse
engineer the DMCS FORMs or find another method of getting SMUS files
entered.

I have heard that SoundScape has a module on one of the expansion disks
that does a better job; I don't know if the result if DMCS-compatible,
though.
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