Practica Musica 3

[Scott Baret]

I got an unused new old stock copy of Practica Musica 3 on eBay earlier this week and am anxiously awaiting its arrival. I will probably use it on the Plus.

A few questions to any PM3 users out there...

1. What would be a good synth to use with it if I'm running it on a 68K Mac? Obviously I'd need serial port connectivity, and I'd like a decent one that I could use for enjoyment on the side as well. (Regular pianos are still my favorite but at 1AM when everyone's sleeping...yeah, headphones become necessary).

2. What sort of music theory concepts are taught? I've read about the newer versions and I remember using a really old version of it circa 1992 in a school computer lab, I recall pitch recognition being one of the activities. Pitch isn't my problem--I have perfect pitch--but I'd like to do more with inversions, intervals, triads, chords, etc. as a refresher since I'm thinking of doing more with music down the road.

3. Just for my collector's sake--anyone else have PM3 boxed?

 

[Scott Baret]

OK, I had question 2 answered for me....it came today and I looked through its awesome manual (which can be a good theory reference) and saw that it has everything I had wanted plus more.

Ah, what joy to open a brand new shrinkwrapped piece of old software...

 

[tomlee59]

Congrats on getting PM3 -- I've never used the software, but I have a copy of the manual, and it is an extremely well-written summary of music theory. I'm sure you'll enjoy using the software, if the manual's quality is any hint.

As to your first question, I'd recommend getting a MIDI interface; doing so would greatly expand your synthesizer options. I've seen several on-line schematics, although some of the designs make me cringe (easily fixed, though). Building your own is neither hard nor expensive, so you might want to look into that.

 

[Bunsen]

Mac serial MIDI ports were reasonably common on late 80s through 90s synthesisers from Roland, Yamaha and others. Standalone MIDI interfaces also turn up on eBay faily regularly.

You might want to try a Yamaha CBX series - a small, portable keybaord with a wide range of onboard sounds. If you were to go for a separate keyboard controller and a sound module, check out the Roland/Edirol Sound Canvas series for a synth. Oodles of high quality sounds and a few FX.

I should think if you keyword search "Serial" or "Mac" in the appropriate ebay categories, you'll get a good idea of your options.

 

[Bunsen]

Here's one