System 6 MIDI Playback/Softsynth Software?

[Garrett]

I've discussed this a couple other times in some other spots, but still haven't been able to find a solution. I've been wanting to see if MIDI playback or software synthesis is a possibility on a compact Mac running System 6 so I can play music (MIDI files) without the need for external MIDI devices. I've had luck finding MIDI playback software for System 7, but the only program for System 6 I've been able to find - ConcertWare - doesn't want to work.

ConcertWare opens, but will not allow me to open any MIDI files. I've tried this on Mini vMac, my Macintosh SE and my Macintosh Classic - all with the same results. Any ideas on how to get it to play? Here is a GIF with some "screenshots" of the MIDI file and what happens when you try to open it...



Are there any other good options for playing MIDI files on a Mac running System 6 in software? I've also tried getting short .AIFF samples to play (mono, 22kHz sample rate, 8-bit depth) with no luck, either.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Byrd]

I suspect there is an issue with the file itself over ConcertWare (perhaps a resource fork/PC compatibility issue), have you tried other MIDI files?  Another program to try is MusicWorks. 

Keep in mind you'll get basic FM synth MIDI playback on an older Mac - I'm at work forgot name but the MIDI instrument bank on later versions of Mac OS was a decent representation of Roland's sound banks.

 

[Garrett]

I suspect there is an issue with the file itself over ConcertWare (perhaps a resource fork/PC compatibility issue), have you tried other MIDI files?  Another program to try is MusicWorks. 

Keep in mind you'll get basic FM synth MIDI playback on an older Mac - I'm at work forgot name but the MIDI instrument bank on later versions of Mac OS was a decent representation of Roland's sound banks.

I have tried other MIDI files... same problem with ConcertWare. Perhaps by coincidence both MIDI files I've tried are bad? I'll look at MusicWorks... does it offer MIDI playback in software?

 

[Crutch]

Unless I’m very confused, MusicWorks just supports its own format and doesn’t handle

MIDI at all. 

 

[Byrd]

My mistake sorry - MusicWorks is even older than ConcertWare.

 

[Mu0n]

I wrote you on facebook in the Apple Enthusiast group, but I'll repost here for the sake of discussion here:

You can't output MIDI from this. I always ranked the various very early music notation software in terms of capability in my mind in this way:

Concertware: uses the 4-tone synthetizer of the Sound Driver, which lets it have simply defined short waveforms (allowing it rash sounding 8-bit like square wave form, to smooth flute-ish sines) and 4 instruments playing at once.

Studio Session (first version): uses up to 6 free waveforms and patches them together by code, far surpassing the basic limitation of playing 1 free waveform of the Sound Driver. Instruments are sounding much more realistic but everything is limited by 11 kHz sound quality iirc. This is a crude, but effective attempt to mimick what digital audio sampled-based synthetizers are doing.

Super Studio Session (follow-up version): uses up to 8 free waveforms, sound quality can go up to 22 kHz, requires more than a Mac Plus.

Cubase 1.0: I don't know much about it, but I know you can do MIDI-like composition on it, as in, the hardware that produces the music is outside of the mac and you just send it MIDI commands. I think this early version certainly runs on an SE/30, might run on a SE. You can do more instruments (but I couldn't tell you how many) at once. Sounds best if you're going for realism but it's annoying to get what you need if you don't have it in connectivity. May require an ADB-MIDI interface box on top of your synth or sound canvas.

 

[Garrett]

My mistake sorry - MusicWorks is even older than ConcertWare.

I noticed this when downloading MusicWorks... it debuted in 1984, making it probably one of the earlier music production programs for the Macintosh. Obviously no MIDI capability because MIDI would've been in its infancy (IIRC) at that time.

Despite no MIDI capability, I did install MusicWorks. Below is a video of me demonstrating it on the 1988 Macintosh SE. It doesn't appear to be a bad software for composing your own songs, and I'd probably get a lot more out of it if I knew how to read/write music.

I saw this on Facebook this morning. Unfortunately, I've been swamped today with a huge project at work with a tight deadline, so I haven't had a chance to respond until now.

ConcertWare is the software I originally tried. It will not let me open MIDI files, as mentioned earlier in this post.

Can Studio Session and Super Studio Session open MIDI files?

On Cubase, I know this is probably one of the more popular MIDI/music composition programs from the early Macintosh era... and I believe it will run on a Macintosh SE and Classic. Only problem is I don't have a synthesizer to plug the Mac into, so I'm looking for something that can do synthesis in software - if that's even a thing? I know it's a thing in System 7 (Arnold's MIDI Player, for instance) but maybe System 6 and these earlier Macs just don't have the "processing horsepower" or something?

 

[Byrd]

I noticed this when downloading MusicWorks... it debuted in 1984, making it probably one of the earlier music production programs for the Macintosh. Obviously no MIDI capability because MIDI would've been in its infancy (IIRC) at that time.

Quite a nice piece of software for 1984, isn't it - the version I've found in the usual abandonware sites looks very early, I do recall a later version which I might have on floppy disc somewhere.

 

[Mu0n]

Can Studio Session and Super Studio Session open MIDI files?

On Cubase, I know this is probably one of the more popular MIDI/music composition programs from the early Macintosh era... and I believe it will run on a Macintosh SE and Classic. Only problem is I don't have a synthesizer to plug the Mac into, so I'm looking for something that can do synthesis in software - if that's even a thing? I know it's a thing in System 7 (Arnold's MIDI Player, for instance) but maybe System 6 and these earlier Macs just don't have the "processing horsepower" or something?

No, Studio Session uses another proprietary format. Where a MIDI file played on synthetizers would typically call upon hardware to get to sampled instruments (often in ROM chips), Studio Session has a single freewave tone for each instrument saved on disk as an audio file, played back at various frequencies to produce all the notes. It kind of acts like MIDI, but with way less functionality, way less instruments and is completely incompatible. One of my pet project is to reverse engineer the Studio Session song format and make code that can play the song files (and instrument files) in a game splash screen, for example (it must tax the cpu a lot and wouldn't allow arcade speed gameplay at the same time I would guess).

Back in 1986 or less, MIDI wasn't much present on low end consumer computer machines. It was just about to start. You have to wait until the General MIDI standard was made official in the early 90's to really see it implemented everywhere and widely compatible. Roland did make the MT-32 Sound Module (1987) that boasted the earliest form of MIDI compatibility, but with some Roland-specific quirks that were not 100% mimicked in other company's offerings (ie Yamaha FB-01).

 

[Crutch]

Mark of the Unicorn’s Performer could create and output MIDI on very early Macs. But you wanted playback without an external MIDI interface - it can’t do that and I’m not aware of any early software that could. 

 

[Crutch]

I used PlayerPRO to play MOD files in the System 7 era, if that helps.  https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/playerpro-4

 

[Mu0n]

I kinda understand where you're coming from. PC users had, right from 1987, the option of playing back real MIDI file through an adlib sound card, arguably the first hardware sound card worthy of mention which used Yamaha OPL chips. Even though it sounded like a joke for professional synthetizer musicians of the 80's, it was still leaps and bounds above anything else on the PC, surpassing the monotone PC speaker, or other humble offerings which output 3 programmable PC speaker-like voices (Tandy, for example). But this required a hardware chip on an ISA card in an expansion slot of the motherboard, something that just wasn't in the habit of happening much for the compact Macintosh. The other alternative was, as I said earlier, to do it completely through software, but you ran into CPU bottleneck limitations, which still produced Studio Session, the closest mimick to MIDI (falling very short, but still a very charming and capable proposition) on the old B&W Macs. If you wanted more, you were forced to connect a MIDI synth through the ADB port through an interface box. All the work was offloaded from the CPU to that and suddenly, you could go up in the dozens of simultaneous voices.

Adlib was a pseudo-MIDI playback device for the masses and clever programmers and musicians made it sing. People remember the sounds fondly, even the bad percussions. The best example is the wonderful work of Stéphane Picq, where the OPL2 adlib music sounds BETTER than its Roland MT-32 equivalent despite the latter using dedicated synth hardware.

 

[Oberlehrer]

On Cubase, I know this is probably one of the more popular MIDI/music composition programs from the early Macintosh era... and I believe it will run on a Macintosh SE and Classic. Only problem is I don't have a synthesizer to plug the Mac into, so I'm looking for something that can do synthesis in software - if that's even a thing? I know it's a thing in System 7 (Arnold's MIDI Player, for instance) but maybe System 6 and these earlier Macs just don't have the "processing horsepower" or something?

The "processing horsepower" was definitely lacking in earlier Macs. Incomplete Quicktime Musical Instruments (essentially a preset sample player) were introduced with Quicktime 2 which in turn required System 7. I don't completely remember if the instruments also required an 68030 or higher or if the 68000 was sufficient.