Issue 27: Jan 2003
Features
- | Foreword
- | Tip of the day
- | Welcome to MagiC Mac 10
- | Do Atari Systems Need USB?
- | AEX: Tangerine Dream Machine Version 2!
- | Max-A-Flex
- | The Ultima II Survival Kit
- | T-shirt Design with Atari
- | The ABBUC programming contest
Review
- | Marijuana Mail
M@ilbox
News
| M@ilbox Getting started with MIDI HI . JUST STARTIN UP IN THE ATARI WORLD, I HAVE AN ATARI 1040 STE 4MEG RUNIN NOTATOR SL ,ALSO HAVE A ROLAND TR-707 DRUM MACHINE AND A AKAI S900 AND BEHRINGER COMPOSER PRO ,ELECTRIX MO-FX,SAMSON SERVO AMP, ALESIS 3630 COMPRESSOR , VESTAX THREE CHANEL MIXER.BUT I DONT NO WHERE TO START FOUR EXAMPLE WHERE DO I PLUG IT ALL IN ? AND DO I NEED ANYTHING ELSE LIKE A MIDI KEYBOARD OF SOME SORT . I LOVE MUSIC AND WANT TO TRY IT OUT FOUR MY SELF I HAVE BEEN A BED ROOM DJ FOUR 10 YEARS AND LOVE THE DANCE MUSIC DRUM +BASS BIG BEAT FAT BOY SLIM AKA NORMAN COOK TYPE OF MUSIC CAN U HELP OR POINT ME IN RIGHT DIRECTION .THANK YOU MR SILVESTRI Tim Conrardy replies: Hi Mr Silvestri Sounds like you are off to a good start with Notator and a 4 MB Atari. As you mention Fat Boy Slim, I hear he still uses Notator on an Atari, so you are in good company. However according to your list, you mention many fine modules, but no MIDI keyboard controller. I would suggest getting a simple "dummy" MIDI controller. That is, it does not generate sound, only on and off notes. These are available for pretty cheap, depending on how many features you want. Some are small and are meant for computer music. Some are much larger if you require piano action and 88 keys. For hookups, make sure all the audio outputs of the modules are going to your mixer. Depending if you mixer has effect send and return, this is where you would plug in all your effects units. You can also try dedicating an effects module to a MIDI module, so you can get different types of effects for each module you have. To do this, simply take the audio output of the MIDI module to the audio input of the effects unit, and then plug the effects audio output directly into the mixer. Now for the MIDI part. Master MIDI keyboard controller MIDI Out to the Atari MIDI In. Atari MIDI Out to the Akai S900 MIDI In. The Akai S900 MIDI Thru to the Roland TR-707 MIDI In. If you get any other modules, basically you are doing a chain effect: MIDI Thru from first module to MIDI in on the next. MIDI Thru (again) on the second module to the MIDI In of the next, and so on. You can hook up a lot of modules this way, but not too many otherwise you might get hanging notes. You only use the MIDI Out of the module if you are going to get patch information from the module (System Exclusive). Now you are ready to Rock and Rap! I would also suggest looking into the new tools available for the Atari platform that would help in creating drum and bass type of styles. These include AEX (the Tangerine Dream Machine), Pulsar, ISEQ, Tunesmith, MIDI Arpeggiator (Electronic Cow) and much more. These programs emulate the analog sequencer style, however with intellegence. Using these programs does not require a MIDI keyboard controller, so you might want to start here until you can obtain your keyboard. More information on these programs on my web site. Be sure to read my download FAQ page first so you know how to get these excellent programs into your Atari. A further note: you might be able to run these "tools" at the same time as Notator with the help of the "SoftLink" program from the Notator package. You can even record what they do right into Notator as well! Also for Notator, I would suggest joining the Notator forum at http://www.notator.org. Notator is a big program and this group can really help! There is also the Atari-MIDI forum as well, so lots of support here on Planet Atari! Tim's Atari MIDI World http://tamw.atari-users.net Atari-MIDI Forum http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/atari-midi Hotz Translator Forum http://groups.yahoo.com/group/midi-translator/ Atari to PC file transfer Dear Matthew, I just read your most interesting article "Festive Networking by Jerry Martin". I wonder if Jerry or someone you know could help me out regarding how to transfer files from my Atari 1040STe to my Dell PC. I wish to let you know that as I have been a musician all my life I was one of the first to use Sequencing and Notation software in Australia. The only computer that had such software then was the Atari 1040 & 520 Notwithstanding all the sequencing and notation software available for pc's these days - NOTHING! still comes close with what you can do on a 1040ST!! - I've tried them all. I'm not too much into sequencing BUT I do a lot of work on Notation as I write music arrangements as part of my profession. I have written 1000's of arrangements and I have saved them as MIDI files and also as IMG files which I then import into other graphic/publishing programs such as Photoshop/PageMaker, Quark etc on my Dell so as I can then create PDF files for distribution and sale on my web site. The Atari 1040STe first descent sequencer was made by Steinberg but it was terrible as a Notation program. Then came CLAB NOTATOR - THE GREATEST MUSIC PROGRAM EVER MADE. - Still used by great movie score composers and arrangers. It happens to be the best sequencer and notator still to this very day!! Now - back to my 1000's of IMG files sitting on my TWO HARD DISKS on my Atari 1040STe - on an average - each image is from 600kb to 1MG - and although I've tried copying to floppy and then loading to my Dell from the floppy - it is time consuming and at the most I rarely fit more than one file at a time on a floppy disk. So therefore I'm trying to find a way of transferring the files across to the Dell PC. I have an RS232 NULL MODEM (I really don't know what it is- someone said if I got one of these I could use it to transfer the files !!!) Hope to hear from you soon if you can help Love your newsletters - thanks. Bye Enzo Giribaldi Musical Director: Aida Music P/L My One Man Band Web Site http://ozziecom.com/onemanband/ My Sheet Music Web Site http://www.pip.com.au/~ausmusic/index.html My Personal Web Site http://ozziecom.com/eg/ Jerry Martin replies: I'm glad you liked the article. Well you'll be glad to hear that you don't need to go to anything as extensive as in the article to transfer your files. I will have to warn you however, and Matthew could probably confirm this, that the 1040STE is limited to a maximum transfer rate of 19,200 bps over the serial port. From experience that means you can expect to transfer about 1 KB/sec or 15 minutes per Megabyte (all very rough and approximate). Anyway, here are the steps. I presume the RS232 null modem you mention is a cable which will plug into your modem port on the back of the STE and into one of the serial ports (sometimes marked COM) on the back of the PC. The Atari uses a 25-pin port whereas most PCs use 9-pin ports. Don't let this put you off - usually the cables come with both connectors on either end, if not you might need to purchase an adapter either for the PC or the Atari. Once the cable is firmly plugged in you need software to make them "talk" to each other. On the PC side you can use the in-built program called Hyperterminal. You will find it by clicking on the Start menu and going to Programs>Accessories>Communications. On the Atari side you will also need a communications (comms) program. The best is undoubtedly "Connect" now available as freeware. Download it from: http://www.oelwein.de/philipp/personalien/downloads/conn95de.lzh This is a German distribution so you will also need to download: http://www.oelwein.de/philipp/personalien/downloads/c95rsc_e.zip This is the English resource file which you copy to the Connect directory when you have extracted the first archive. Also in the first archive is a little program to give you a registration key to use the software - although freeware, the key mechanism is still intact so you simply generate your own key! Once you have Connect up and running and registered it's time to configure the ports. On the PC side - when Hyperterminal starts it usually asks for a name for the connection. Choose a name, such as "Atari". In the next dialog you need to choose your connection type. From the drop-down list near the bottom of the dialog you will be able to choose from your available modems and serial ports. Chose the COM port to which you have connected the cable. Set the transfer rate (bits per second) to 19,200, the parity to "none", the stop bits to "1" and the flow control to "hardware". Once you click OK you should be looking at a blank terminal window. Go over to the Atari and start Connect. Bring up the port options dialog box using [Alternate]+[P]. Choose the Port Modem 1 and set the rest of the parameters to the same as for the PC connection (hardware flow control is listed as RTS/CTS on the Atari). Once you click OK on this box you are back at a blank terminal window on the Atari. Test the connection by typing a few letters - they should appear on your Dell screen. Before going any further let's save this set-up - on the Atari, within the terminal window, use the Setup menu and chose "Save setup" give a name ending in ".SET" for the details. Then go to the main menu bar and choose Options/Save options. And give the name "CONNECT.OPT" On the PC side, just close the Hyperterminal window and it should ask you to save settings. Choose OK. If you go to Start>Programs>Accessories>Communications>Hyperterminal you should see a shortcut listed there with the name "Atari" if that is what you chose in the very first step. Basically that's all you need to do to get the connection up and running. Now, as the connection is not very fast, it's better to ZIP the files on the Atari before sending them over. Use STZip available from: ftp://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/atari/archivers/stzip26.tos To send the files, open the terminals and type a few letters on either machine to make sure they appear on the screen of the other - this confirms you have a connection. To choose where downloaded files will appear, click on the "receive file" icon on the PC toolbar. Choose a directory, make sure the protocol is set to "Zmodem with crash recovery". Click on Close. On the Atari, use the menu within the terminal window and choose the menu option Terminal/File transfer (or press [Alternate]+[F]). Just make sure the options are as follows: Transfer program - intern Autostart - on Transfer parameters: Zmodem No escapes 1,024 byte blocks binary files ask user crc32 And none of the check boxes should be selected. If you had to change any of the above options I would advise you to save your new settings using the method described earlier. Finally we get to business. Go to Misc/Upload or press [Alternate]+[Shift]+[U] and choose the ZIP or IMG file you want to send. Click OK and if all is in order, the file should start transferring and the PC should show a progress bar. That's pretty much it - repeat as necessary! Like I warned, this will be a bit on the slow side, but it's less arduous than floppy disks and you can say ZIP up a few hundred files and transfer them overnight.
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