24 Dec
2006
24 Dec
'06
1:08 p.m.
I am currently working on a project involving music made with
computers before MIDI. Some aspects and examples might be the old
mainframes playing tunes on band printers, minicomputers making tunes
with RFI, microcomputers controlling analog synthesizers, and so
forth.
I have no strict timeline on this, but I would like to pull things
together in a few months maximum.
Things I am looking for:
1) Recordings of 2nd generation (or even before, if they exist)
mainframes making tunes. There are a few recordings out there, and I
may be getting some help from CHM for more.
2) A working 1970s era minicomputer with core, probably a PDP-8 or
Nova, that is reliable enough to make a performance.
3) A 1970s era microcomputer controlling an analog synthesizer.
4) Outstanding examples of Atari and/or C64s making music.
5) Leads to artists and musicians that used classic computers in
recordings, famous or not. Decent quality MP3s would be great.
6) An example of the HP printer (a deskjet?) that contains the musical
Easter Egg, operational.
7) Any examples of music made by computer algorithms, remixes by
computer, and so forth. Experimental works are welcome.
8) Any suggestions to expand this. The computers need not be classics,
the music need not be oddball, but the results should be a little on
the weird side (for example, I do not need a Pentium 3 running
Protools making trance).
While I am not looking to buy any of these machines, I am looking for
examples that are very reliable, and can travel to New Jersey for a
Saturday morning (probably). Appearance is not important, being this
will all take place in a studio.
There is a very slim chance I can provide the minicomputer, but all my
tapes are lost in limbo, so I doubt it. Being a PDP-8/S, normal PDP-8
music tapes will not work. There is also a chance I can provide a
Minimoog synthesizer, if someone can provide the microcomputer with
D/A cards (for the control voltages) and some sort of software for
making a tune.
So please go and think about this, and tell me what you think, and if
you can contribute. Certainly proper credit will be given to those
that can help out, but sorry, no money. I am not getting paid for this
either.
Thank you for your time.
--
Will
24 Dec
24 Dec
1:22 p.m.
In article <e1d20d630612241308i70bae947g7cb21003ab42fecd at mail.gmail.com>,
"William Donzelli" <wdonzelli at gmail.com> writes:
4) Outstanding examples of Atari and/or C64s making
music.
<http://www.scenemusic.org/> *Tons* of stuff there.
--
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1:54 p.m.
Richard wrote:
In article
<e1d20d630612241308i70bae947g7cb21003ab42fecd at mail.gmail.com>,
"William Donzelli" <wdonzelli at gmail.com> writes:
And here ->
http://www.8bitpeoples.com/
4) Outstanding examples of Atari and/or C64s
making music.
<http://www.scenemusic.org/> *Tons* of stuff there.
25 Dec
25 Dec
7:56 a.m.
In article <458EF721.40106 at gjcp.net>,
Gordon JC Pearce <gordon at gjcp.net> writes:
Richard wrote:
Yep, 8bitpeoples are great guys. I've flown their members to SLC from
NYC twice for performances here. You can listen to Nullsleep's
performance from 2003 here:
<http://scene.org/dir.php?dir=%2Fparties%2F2003%2Fpilgrimage03%2Fmusic/>
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
In article
<e1d20d630612241308i70bae947g7cb21003ab42fecd at mail.gmail.com>,
"William Donzelli" <wdonzelli at gmail.com> writes:
And here ->
http://www.8bitpeoples.com/ 4) Outstanding examples of Atari and/or C64s
making music.
<http://www.scenemusic.org/> *Tons* of stuff there.
8:33 a.m.
Thanks all to pointers to interesting things so far.
What I really need, however, are pieces of actual hardware making the
tunes, rather than recordings. I realize that I can not bring a 1403N1
printer into the studio, so recordings are in order there, but I
certainly can get a PDP-8/e or Altair or Atari setup going. The major
shtick is that the machines will be making the music right then and
there, live.
This is all a preliminary idea for a one-off show on WFMU in Jersey
City, NJ. I have very enthusiastic support from others at the station,
including the music director, however, I had to tell him that I need
time to gather up all the pieces. Those with systems that they would
like to demo need not have their human half get on the air if they
want to, although it would be nice if I had some others to talk to
about the systems and the weird computer music culture behind it.
Pretty much the only requirement would be that the show would be some
Saturday in the mid morning in Jersey City, and the machine owners
would need to be there beforehand, ready to go.
I should also say that an analog computer running a synth would be
cool as well.
--
Will
3:13 a.m.
William Donzelli wrote:
3) A 1970s era microcomputer controlling an analog
synthesizer.
http://www.ems-synthi.demon.co.uk/emsstory.html
Gordon
26 Dec
26 Dec
4:10 p.m.
On Sun, 24 Dec 2006, William Donzelli wrote:
I am currently working on a project involving music
made with
computers before MIDI. Some aspects and examples might be the old
mainframes playing tunes on band printers, minicomputers making tunes
with RFI, microcomputers controlling analog synthesizers, and so
forth.
How about a first-class synthesizer? The New England Digital Synclavier
was built around a bit slice AM29xx minicomputer running their ABEL
operating system. IIRC, the developers were involved in early research
into digital synthesis at Dartmouth College (circa 1973?) and went on to
found NED. The Synclavier had considerable commercial software available
for it and could be programmed in a low-level language called XPL. IIRC,
the first units appeared around 1980 and almost certainly pre-dated the
IBM PC.
Although later versions "spoke" MIDI, this was a marketing afterthought.
It was light years more advanced than consumer instruments of the day,
with only the Australian FairLight synthesizer coming close.
Finding a working unit for your presentation might be difficult. They
were finicky at best and I'll wager there aren't a lot of functional
systems out there anymore. Unfortunately, the world market for $100K
synths (back when that was real money) was easily saturated and NED went
belly-up in the late 80s.
--
4:18 p.m.
Steven N. Hirsch wrote:
Finding a working unit for your presentation might be
difficult. They
were finicky at best and I'll wager there aren't a lot of functional
systems out there anymore. Unfortunately, the world market for $100K
synths (back when that was real money) was easily saturated and NED went
belly-up in the late 80s.
A few years ago there was one for sale in a Glasgow music shop for
?1000. It was, as far as I could tell, fully loaded with FM cards, and
a couple of sampling cards.
I wish I'd blown my student loan on that.
Gordon.
27 Dec
27 Dec
7:49 a.m.
How about a first-class synthesizer? The New England
Digital Synclavier
was built around a bit slice AM29xx minicomputer running their ABEL
operating system.
I would rather not, unless it was an NED minicomputer (they made them
for the military before the Synclavier) doing the music. However, I do
not know anyone that has an NED mini.
In fact, I am not really going to be picky about what mini makes the
tunes, but I think the ones with core memory do a better job (more
RFI). A PDP-8/e would be ideal. The key is that I would like to do
this live.
--
Will
26 Dec
26 Dec
8:07 p.m.
On 12/24/06, William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com> wrote:
I am currently working on a project involving music
made with
computers before MIDI. Some aspects and examples might be the old
mainframes playing tunes on band printers, minicomputers making tunes
with RFI, microcomputers controlling analog synthesizers, and so
forth.
I think at this point it would be a good idea to mention the book
"Musical Applications of Microprocessors" by Hal Chamberlin: a great
book, sadly out of print for a long time - but a nearby University
library might still have a copy.
4) Outstanding examples of Atari and/or C64s making
music.
http://www.hvsc.c64.org/ has an easily accessed collection of almost
every C64 tune ever written, ripped into a convenient .sid format.
You can then play those using a SID emulator that just emulates the
SID, rather than a whole C64. For the mac, there is a neat little app
called Sidplay that is nice to use. At least this way you can easily
preview the tunes before getting a real C64.
5) Leads to artists and musicians that used classic
computers in
recordings, famous or not. Decent quality MP3s would be great.
If you can find old issues of a British magazine called "Electronics
and Music Maker" from the early 80's, they often had profiles of
musicians that used what are now classic computers. My copies are
deep in storage, but I can dig them out if you are interested.
7) Any examples of music made by computer algorithms,
remixes by
computer, and so forth. Experimental works are welcome.
You might try to get in touch with someone from the IEEE Technical
Committee on Computer Generated Music (TCCGM) - the link is too long
to paste here, just google for TCCGM. They have occasional
publications (at least one special issue of the IEEE/CS magazine
"Computer"), a university library might have it.
8) Any suggestions to expand this. The computers need
not be classics,
the music need not be oddball, but the results should be a little on
the weird side (for example, I do not need a Pentium 3 running
Protools making trance).
There were demos and hacks for the 1541 drive playing music by
knocking its heads - that might not be too hard to find. I think
something for the Amiga and its drives existed as well.
While I am not looking to buy any of these machines, I
am looking for
examples that are very reliable, and can travel to New Jersey for a
Saturday morning (probably). Appearance is not important, being this
will all take place in a studio.
Amiga 500s should be cheap and easy to get a hold of - and have a
fairly recognizable lo-fi sound (8bit resolution and variable sampling
freq) C64s are also like sand on the beach...
There is also a chance I can provide a
Minimoog synthesizer, if someone can provide the microcomputer with
D/A cards (for the control voltages) and some sort of software for
making a tune.
There are various outfits (such as Paia(sp?)) making midi-to-CV
interfaces - is that cheating? :-)
So please go and think about this, and tell me what
you think, and if
you can contribute. Certainly proper credit will be given to those
that can help out, but sorry, no money. I am not getting paid for this
either.
I recommend poking around with the CSOUND language/compiler. It has
changed very little over the last few decades, and thus the sound
you'll get out of it will be no different than if you were to run it
on old iron - except it'll run faster.
Joe.
27 Dec
27 Dec
12:01 a.m.
Joachim Thiemann wrote:
There are various outfits (such as Paia(sp?)) making
midi-to-CV
interfaces - is that cheating? :-)
It's just 1V/Oct normal CV stuff. Easy enough to use an R/2R ladder and
an opamp for the scaling. Look for a workshop manual for any 80s
analogue/digital crossover synth (such as the infamous Roland TB-303 or
SH-101) for an example of such a creature.
I have a couple of parallel I/O cards for my PDP-11 that I'd planned to
do just this very thing with. Haven't done it yet, though.
Gordon
8 a.m.
http://www.hvsc.c64.org/ has an easily accessed
collection of almost
every C64 tune ever written, ripped into a convenient .sid format.
You can then play those using a SID emulator that just emulates the
SID, rather than a whole C64. For the mac, there is a neat little app
called Sidplay that is nice to use. At least this way you can easily
preview the tunes before getting a real C64.
I would be happy to leave most of the C64 music selection to the guy
that demos the machine. I think I still have a C64 emulator on this
machine, when I wanted to play Castles of Dr. Creep.
If you can find old issues of a British magazine
called "Electronics
and Music Maker" from the early 80's, they often had profiles of
musicians that used what are now classic computers. My copies are
deep in storage, but I can dig them out if you are interested.
I am more interested in some of the more oddball releases from the
1970s, like Roger Powell's Air Pocket, which credits an Altair system
on the album. By early to mid 1980s, plenty of artists were using
microcomputers for sequencing, so by then, they were a fairly
established studio tool.
You might try to get in touch with someone from the
IEEE Technical
Committee on Computer Generated Music (TCCGM) - the link is too long
to paste here, just google for TCCGM. They have occasional
publications (at least one special issue of the IEEE/CS magazine
"Computer"), a university library might have it.
Yes, I need to look into them, thanks.
There were demos and hacks for the 1541 drive playing
music by
knocking its heads - that might not be too hard to find. I think
something for the Amiga and its drives existed as well.
Very interested in those as well, as I figure doing the same with 14
inch drives is unrealistic.
Amiga 500s should be cheap and easy to get a hold of -
and have a
fairly recognizable lo-fi sound (8bit resolution and variable sampling
freq) C64s are also like sand on the beach...
Yes, and I hope that someone (MARCH?) would want to show off a bit.
On-Air praise and kudos to those that do!
There are various outfits (such as Paia(sp?)) making
midi-to-CV
interfaces - is that cheating? :-)
Sort of...
--
Will
9:02 a.m.
I am more interested in some of the more oddball
releases from the
1970s, like Roger Powell's Air Pocket, which credits an Altair system
on the album. By early to mid 1980s, plenty of artists were using
microcomputers for sequencing, so by then, they were a fairly
established studio tool.
One of the Steely Dan albums (Gaucho, I think) credits a Tandy Model 100
IIRC. If you're interested, I'll try to dig up the liner notes.
There were
demos and hacks for the 1541 drive playing music by
knocking its heads - that might not be too hard to find. I think
something for the Amiga and its drives existed as well.
Very interested in those as well, as I figure doing the same with 14
inch drives is unrealistic. 
12:38 p.m.
And thusly were the wise words spake by William Donzelli
SIDs *have* to be played on the real thing... Emulation of the SID
is still not there yet.
As for *what* SIDs to play, SLAYradio just did a SID-only show last
week of some really great stuff from HVSC and they also posted
their play list. :)
IIRC, there is also a music program for the PET that allows you play
music with the help of an on screen keyboard and also record. But I
can't remember the name at the moment...
Cheers,
Bryan
BTW, I live in S. New Jersey and have PETs, Commodores and Amigas, plus
a few other vintage computers...
http://www.hvsc.c64.org/ has an easily accessed
collection of almost
every C64 tune ever written, ripped into a convenient .sid format.
You can then play those using a SID emulator that just emulates the
SID, rather than a whole C64. For the mac, there is a neat little app
called Sidplay that is nice to use. At least this way you can easily
preview the tunes before getting a real C64.
I would be happy to leave most of the C64 music selection to the guy
that demos the machine. I think I still have a C64 emulator on this
machine, when I wanted to play Castles of Dr. Creep.
Amiga 500s should be cheap and easy to get a hold
of - and have a
fairly recognizable lo-fi sound (8bit resolution and variable sampling
freq) C64s are also like sand on the beach...
Yes, and I hope that someone (MARCH?) would want to show off a bit.
On-Air praise and kudos to those that do!
6:22 p.m.
Check out .... Epay auction id: 200062903199
IBM 1710 Computer Control of Sound for Electronic Music
12:25 p.m.
"William Donzelli" wrote:
I am currently working on a project involving music
made with
computers before MIDI. Some aspects and examples might be the old
mainframes playing tunes on band printers, minicomputers making tunes
with RFI, microcomputers controlling analog synthesizers, and so
forth.
Don't forget to include the IBM 1620 + AM Radio.
I remember it playing (nicely) christmas carols. I think the length
of the move (the move which continued until it hit a flag) generated
different tones (it was ages ago, at Carleton College and the NHS).
I remember there were several different music programs.
it put the 1130 line printer music to shame :-) early '70s (and probably
before that)
There was also a music setup for the lisp machines at MIT but I have never
heard any recordings - only seen the software. That would be mid '70s.
-brad
6569
days inactive
6573
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15 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
bpope＠wordstock.com -
brad＠heeltoe.com -
caveguy＠sbcglobal.net -
gordon＠gjcp.net -
joachim.thiemann＠gmail.com -
legalize＠xmission.com -
shirsch＠adelphia.net -
spectre＠floodgap.com -
wdonzelli＠gmail.com