My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player]

Posted by: DeadFire

My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 01/11/2005 17:14

This MIDI player was able to, way back in the days of Windows 3.1 I believe, produce a sound that was much more realistic. With some well done MIDIs, it came very close to sounding like a real band, if I remember correctly. It also allowed you to change the instruments being used to play a particular track on-the-fly. However, I don't think it was able to save these changes to the MIDI you were playing. It could however, save the sound it was producing as a WAV file.

The only thing I remember about the player's name is that it starts with a "U". And I'm not even 100% certain of that. I believe it was ShareWare.

Is there any master of Google out there gracious enough to take on my request?
Posted by: tfabris

Re: My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 01/11/2005 17:33

I believe the class of software you're looking for is what was called in those days a "TRACKER", and it wasn't precisely Midi, it was all done with samples. The files it produced weren't midi files, they were like .S3M or some other format.

Now I'm blanking on the names of these programs and on the name of the file format. Someone else will fill in here, I'm sure...
Posted by: tman

Re: My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 01/11/2005 18:29

The file format you're thinking of is MOD
Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 01/11/2005 19:22

If it was way back in Windows 3.1 era, try using DOS as a search term, along with MIDI or tracker.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 01/11/2005 19:28

Yeah! MOD!

Yeah, the product you're talking about is a MOD/S3M tracker.
Posted by: g_attrill

Re: My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 01/11/2005 19:31

MOD4WIN was an excellent one, it was made freeware at the last update. This page has some info and a download:

http://pjeantaud.free.fr/mod4win/english.html

Gareth
Posted by: ricin

Re: My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 01/11/2005 19:38

There's Ultra Tracker; that might be what you're thinking of. I used Scream Tracker, Impulse Tracker, and Fast Tracker for most of my stuff back then. I believe you can still find them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracker
Posted by: g_attrill

Re: My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 01/11/2005 19:42

Here's a MOD archive to get you started, I remember regularly downloading these at college and taking them home to listen to in the evening:

http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/mods/index.html

Gareth
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 01/11/2005 19:50

Like other people have said, you're probably thinking of a MOD Tracker. That said, there might have been some actual MIDI player that used actual samples for reproduction instead of those horrible typical synthesized instruments that you usually hear.
Posted by: DeadFire

Re: My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 01/11/2005 21:16

Quote:
... there might have been some actual MIDI player that used actual samples for reproduction...

After reading all of the posts here, I think that this is more likely. The only format this player could actually save new files as was WAV. And this was allowed because if you had the thing, you probably preferred the sound you got out of it.

I'll just have to keep trying different search terms until I find it, or hopefully, my memory is jogged. For any out there who might be as determined as I, please, don't give up.

Thanks everyone.
Posted by: pgrzelak

Re: My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 01/11/2005 21:23

You might want to read through this page and see if any of the names are familiar. There is a "Unison", but that looks too recent and not what you describe.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 01/11/2005 22:06

Ah. Well, DeadFire, if you're not talking about Mod Trackers, then, these days almost all of the multitrack recording programs do what you want to do with their Virtual Instruments features. No need to go back to Windows 3.1 for that.
Posted by: Roger

Re: My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 02/11/2005 05:56

Quote:
That said, there might have been some actual MIDI player that used actual samples for reproduction instead of those horrible typical synthesized instruments that you usually hear.


That'd be because, back in those days, wavetable synthesis was rare on soundcards. These days, I believe that even an AC97 PoS supports wavetable synth.
Posted by: tman

Re: My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 02/11/2005 07:15

Quote:
Quote:
That said, there might have been some actual MIDI player that used actual samples for reproduction instead of those horrible typical synthesized instruments that you usually hear.


That'd be because, back in those days, wavetable synthesis was rare on soundcards. These days, I believe that even an AC97 PoS supports wavetable synth.

There is a soft synth built into Windows now which uses a Roland ROM image. I think you're limited to a certain sampling frequency however.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 02/11/2005 16:32

Well, there's a difference between wavetable synthesis and sequenced sample playback (despite the fact that the latter is often referred to as the former), which is more along the lines of what I'm suggesting. There might be a sort of meeting point of MIDI and MOD where the player reads a MIDI file, but uses modulated sample playback like you find in MOD trackers instead of synthesis. Even better, it might have separate samples for different note ranges.

Still, you're right in that FM synthesis was the standard back then, and either method above is likely to be a lot better. That said, whenever I encounter one of those web sites where they think it'd be really cool to embed a MIDI file, I still hear FM synthesis.
Posted by: FireFox31

Re: My Search-Fu is weak [AKA Help Me Find Old MIDI Player] - 02/11/2005 23:40

Could he be referring to MIDI using digitally sampled patch sets? In the early 90's, my Gravis Ultrasound had onboard 30pin ram to load huge, high quality MIDI patch sets.

It hurts that I can't remember these details because back in that day, I was an ace with MIDI and MOD (and s3m, far, ult, xm, mtm, and all that). Maybe the Ultrasound used its 16 digital digital channels in combination with its Roland MPU401 and..... oh, I don't remember.

You could likely capture the sound card output as a WAV using some other software. If you have a Sound Blaster Audigy, it's built into the driver, giving you the "What U Hear" slider on the Windows Sound Controls recording side. Combine that "capture whatever the soundcard outputs" with an MP3 recorder like Messer, and you're set.

Regardless, if my motherboard still had ISA slots, I'd still be using that Gravis Ultrasound PnP with its whopping 4 meg of 30pin SIMMs. Come on, man, it 4 times more digital channels than the SB16, and it had MPU401 and AdLib emulation!