Sounds
Sound tools:
Beethoven's Fifth/lvb5s10.mid
Category: Music & Sound/Music
Author: Project Gutenberg
So there I was, cataloguing the output of the Gutenberg Project:
Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, the U.S. Census, Beethoven, Willa Cather..
Beethoven? Yup, the Internet's librarians have widened their scope
to include music, with the first included file being perhaps the
best-known symphonic work to come out of the Classical period:
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in C minor. Considered bombastic at
the time (as some consider his works today), it's been vindicated
through popular opinion over the last 175 years. Put this sucker
through the MIDI device of your choice, and have fun tinkering
with it! This text has been distributed by the Project Gutenberg
Association, a non-profit organization based at the Illinois Benedictine
College. It has been entering, administering, and distributing
electronic text versions (etexts) of classic literature, mathematical
constants, graphics and other works via computer networks for
over twenty years. The work of the organization is largely supported
by tax-deductible contributions, which should be made payable
to "Project Gutenberg/IBC" and sent to:
Project Gutenberg
Illinois Benedictine College
5700 College Road
Lisle, IL 60532-0900
NOTE: This text is freely distributable, but only on the conditions
listed in the preface to the text. Above all else, DO NOT change
its name (as listed in the file itself) or contents!
Rating: Not Rated
Keywords: project gutenberg lvb5s10.txt text etext music midi ludwig von
beethoven fifth symphony classical
Requires: MIDI-compatible setup
Price: Freeware
Back to top
MIDIScope 1.4
Category: Music & Sound/Music
Author: Ralph Muha
Kurzweil, the electric keyboard people, have come out with a useful
monitor for your MIDI device: MIDIScope. With it, you can keep
an eye on many of the salient aspects of your data flow while
it goes through your computer. Means, peaks, and histograms are
displayed for up to 16 channels, and a wide variety of options
lets you see only what you need to see.
The interface is rather bare-bones, reflecting the state of computer
music in 1988 (MIDIScope's most recent revision). A single window
displays data in very basic forms: line graphics and decimal throughput
data. Unfortunately, the program is showing its lack of recent
revision in another way: it crashes whenever you attempt to load
or save stats under the "File" menu. Nevertheless, it still offers
a good diagnostic tool to check the throughput of your MIDI device,
and would go well in a suite of related programs.
Rating: 3 (out of 5)
Keywords: MUSIC INSTRUMENT DIGITAL INTERFACE MIDI PITCH sound freeware
Requires: MIDI input device
Price: Freeware
Back to top
Meow Sound
Category: Music & Sound/Sound Files
Author: Anonymous
There's not much to say about this file outside of the author's
comments. In uploading this double-clickable System 7 sound, he
writes:
"Meow! is a Snd file of a (mildly) annoyed cat's meow! I and a
feline associate made it as a surprise for a cat lover friend
to replace her existing system beep! My cats go crazy trying to
find the kitten trapped in my Powerbook! Enjoy."
I love that.. "a feline associate." Sound quality is fair, and
the sound is short enough to use as a beep.
Rating: 3 (out of 5)
Keywords: sound cat meow feline kitten noise snd system 7
Requires: System 7 or later
Price: Freeware
Back to top
NotFound Sound
Category: Music & Sound/Sound Files
Author: Joey Rossi
PowerMac and AV users who go goofy showing off the speech synthesis
included in PlainTalk are forgetting that about twenty years ago,
a children's toy did a pretty good job of synthesizing simple
text strings: the Speak and Read. The attached sound is one of
its more popular sayings: "Not Found." This is the news it would
deliver upon finding that its database lacked the obscenity you,
a pre-pubescent tyke, entered into its LED screen. And it almost
sounds sad about it, too.
If you're a decent hacker, I suppose you could get this sound
to play when the Finder's "Find" command fails to find anything,
but I wouldn't work too hard on finding uses for it: as the uploader
says, "It's kinda stupid but pretty funny." What can I add to
that?
Rating: 3 (out of 5)
Keywords: speak and read synthesized voice historical child game
Requires: Mac Plus or better
Price: Freeware
Back to top
Audio Strip GH 1.2
Category: Music & Sound/Sound Tools
Author: Glenn R. Howes
When I want to listen to CDs on my Mac, I eschew Apple's wimpy
CD player, the TeachText of sound tools. Up until now, I've reached
for the shareware program AudioDeck, which sports a much more
flexible and informative interface. But whether you use AudioDeck
(available in this library) or Apple's player, you still have
to mess with launching an application, hitting buttons, setting
parameters, and so forth. And hey! I just wanna listen to some
Greatful Dead, O.K.? Isn't there an easier way?
Now there is. Audio Strip GH is an alternative to the Apple CD
Controls, and it works with all Apple CD ROM drives. It's a minimalist
solution to the problem: for Control Strip- (or Desktop Strip-)
equipped Macs, music controls are as close as your strip. There
are six tiles added to your strip: eject, pause, stop, play, volume,
and an all-in-one tile called "omni", through which the other
controls can be accessed through command-key click combinations.
(This "omni" control is especially useful for users with small
monitors -- or too many control tiles already -- as it takes up
so little real estate on your screen.)
The additional modules which require a $10 registration fee are:
fast forward, fast reverse, next track, previous track and time/volume.
Version 1.1 improves the interface significantly and includes
several additional modules, encrypted until you pay a $10 fee.
Version 1.2 makes some bug fixes and work arounds.
Rating: 3 (out of 5)
Keywords: audio strip control desktop sound play cd rom cdrom music freeware
Requires: Control Strip
Price: Freeware
Back to top
GSP-21 Legend (Demo) 3.1.3
Category: Music & Sound/Sound Tools
Author: John L. Hayes
The GSP-21 Legend programmer is a graphical user interface designed
to help users better edit and control effect patches with this
sound signal processor. It works through an elegant, multi-windowed
interface, with most options being called through pop-up menus
(for the Mac in you) and through sliders (for the musician in
you).
This demo only includes a few effects: over 160 are included in
the full version. NOTE: We were unable to test this software with
a full MIDI setup. Use with care.
Rating: 4 (out of 5)
Keywords: Music guitar signal processor programming graphical gui patches
effects sound
Requires: Mac II or better, System 7 or later, DigiTech GSP-21 Legend
Guitar Signal Processor, MIDI Manager and associated MIDI equipment
Price: Demoware
Back to top
HyperJam 1.0
Category: Music & Sound/Sound Tools
Author: Paul McClernan
So who needs MIDI? Who needs a sampler? Who needs a guitar, for
that matter? Let's jam! HyperJam is a HyperCard stack which lets
you do just that, by putting a user-friendly interface layer between
you and HyperCard's internal (and rather ugly) sound notation
system. Dozens of sounds are included, mostly sampled, including
about three dozen drums, seven guitars, and 16 piano/synthesizer
sounds. Notes can be entered in three ways: by "plucking" the
guitar's strings, by "playing" the piano's keys, or by typing
them in directly in HyperCard's language. Incidentally, the guitar
and piano interfaces make this a terrific educational program
-- not as good as a real guitar or piano, of course, but a step
above many other interfaces.
One or two bugs flaw the program, and the layout isn't as elegant
as it might be. Still, for those of us who want to get involved
in music sequencing without making a big investment, HyperJam
is the way to go.
Incidental note: This is "Who, What, WhyWare," and users are obliged
to send "one of the following: some Email, real mail, a phone
call, a beer, a pack of smokes, some other cool share/freeware,
bondage gear, a demo tape of your Beavis & Butthead-approved local
band.." You get the idea.
Rating: 4 (out of 5)
Keywords: MUSIC GUITAR HYPERCARD SOUND PLAY RECORD SYNTHESIZER SEQUENCER
MIDI
Requires: HyperCard 2.0 or later
Price: "Who, What, WhyWare" (see description)
Back to top
Illustrious Music 1.5
Category: Music & Sound/Sound Tools
Author: Tim Herzog
Users of Finale, the complicated music composition, typesetting
and output program, often rave about its intricacy and thoroughness.
But some facets are still weak: among them, its graphics, PostScript
and output handling. Since it supports raw PostScript output,
we wonder, why can't Finale files be edited in programs better
suited for graphics, such as Illustrator?
Now they can. Illustrious Music fills the gap between sound and
vision by offering a bridge between those two great programs,
Finale and Illustrator. It's easy to use: first, bring your score
as close to perfect as you can in Finale, as any serious music
editing will be difficult in Illustrator. Output it as an EPS
file. Next, go to Illustrious Music and choose "Convert EPS File"
and choose the file. That's it! You have the option to save the
work in a percentage of gray -- useful for creative design. In
addition to its chief function, Illustrious Music also sets crop
marks for efficient output.
Rating: 4 (out of 5)
Keywords: FINALE ILLUSTRATOR EPS GRAPHICS MUSIC LAYOUT DESIGN TYPESETTING
Requires: Finale 2.0 or later, Illustrator 3.0 or later
Price: Shareware $20
Back to top
Player PRO 4.4.1 (Fat)
Category: Music & Sound/Sound Tools
Author: Antoine Rosset
This is the fat binary version of the Player PRO, perhaps the
most complete shareware package available for computer-based music
editing. At its most base, it functions well as a player of MOD,
MAD, MIDI, 669, S3M and Auto-Exec files, but it goes well beyond
playing and offers authoring, editing, and -- perhaps most importantly
-- translation capabilities for various sound formats.
There is no "main screen:" rather, functions are handled in a
series of smaller screens which are so numerous that you have
to be careful not to let them overrun even a 19" screen. A good
idea of the program's capabilities can be culled from a listing
of the control windows available. They include: instrument viewer,
track viewer, "adaptors" window (which controls pitch, speed,
and volume for all 32 tracks), patterns list, oscilloscope, piano
and more.
So whether you want to play various sound files, create them,
or edit them, Player PRO is for you: with extreme flexibility
and control, this is one program you're not going to outgrow very
soon.
As many of the windows rely on color to convey information, a
color monitor is recommended. System 7.5 or later is also recommended
for best use.
A French language version is also available in this library.
NOTE: until you register, editing and some other capabilities
are disabled, and it will quit after playing 20 minutes worth
of music.
Version 4.4 features online help, new oscilloscope, spectrum and
instrument windows, compatibility with Sound-Trecker Music Lists,
Power Mac version is optimized for 601, 603 and 604 processors,
new MOD drivers, supports Samples compression, QuickTime 2.0 instruments
and Apple Events, external plugs provide import/export capabilities,
and bug fixes. Version 4.1.1 fixes bugs.
Rating: 4 (out of 5)
Keywords: PLAYER PRO PPC POWERPC FAT MOD MUSIC EDITOR SOUND amiga MAD
MIDI
Requires: System 7 or later
Price: Shareware $20
Back to top
This page was last updated on Monday, February 09, 2004 at 3:06pm CST.
All contents copyright 2005 by Tom Geller.
Writings by 
