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MIDI Software for Atari XE


bbking67

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Some time well after the Atari ST came out, I remember going to my local music store (Steve's Music in Ottawa Canada). At that time they expanded the shop to include a fairly large keyboard section where they retailed various MIDI synthesizers... probably FM synthesis and early point sampling keyboards. Lots of Roland gear. I was a guitar player and I wasn't that interested in electronic music (tube amp guy)

 

Well they started selling Atari ST's.. no big surprise.

 

Now eventually they expanded the computers being sold to include some MSX computers (and MSX computers were pretty uncommon in Canada) and then, to my surprise, I saw a 65XE setup with a MIDI interface and some kind of software. I'm guessing sequencing software. I'm assuming Atari Canada convinced the Steve's chain tio take on some low cost machines well after their prime... maybe they were even thrown in with a quantity of 1040ST's or whatever.

 

I've heard about MIDI-Mate interfaces (maybe there were others?), but what kind of software was available for musicians for the Atari 8-bit?

 

Anybody on here use an XE for music?

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

MidiTrack III is in the Holmes Archive here: http://www.ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/collections/holmes%20cd/Holmes%201/ATR%20Programs/Applications%20A-Z/Midi%20Track%20III.atr

 

You need a MIDI interface, and especially, a manual. It uses a special format disk, not readable by DOS.

 

Please post back if you have any success. I am also trying to get this to work.

 

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There is the Wizztronics MidiMax MIDI interface. I have one of those.. It came with MIDI software written by Lee Actor who also wrote AMS. It also came with a utility to convert AMS songs to MMS format (Midi Music System, not standard MIDI files) so you could hear them on your synth.

 

I used the Midimax with a Roland MT-32 synth and just played around a little converting AMS songs..

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  • 2 years later...

Well,

 

take a look at the A8FAQ: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq

 

especially subject 6.1.4 "What MIDI interfaces are there for the Atari?". This subject mentions hardware, as well as software...

 

I also scavenged from the original disk of the MIDI MUSIC player that would play .MUS files to a MIDI device. It even runs on Altirra once you add the fictional MIDI MATE to the emulator options. Ir was a hybrid boot disk with assembler so it's not a standalone executable file.

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I used to own the Hybrid Arts Miditrack III system, it had really good software and supported 128k. Hyrbrid Arts was *the* Atari ST midi software providor too. There were also Miditrack 1 and 2 for 48/64k Atari's.

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See my thread on the ST forum here about what I recovered from floppies for the ST and 8 bit. Almost 17mb of compressed files.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/272773-recovered-clip-art-for-the-st-from-the-action-annex-bbs/?p=3909830

 

A lot of time was put into reading every one of those 500 floppies. Some are still needing archiving tools to get the remaining ones.

 

Enjoy!

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See my thread on the ST forum here about what I recovered from floppies for the ST and 8 bit. Almost 17mb of compressed files.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/272773-recovered-clip-art-for-the-st-from-the-action-annex-bbs/?p=3909830

 

A lot of time was put into reading every one of those 500 floppies. Some are still needing archiving tools to get the remaining ones.

 

Enjoy!

 

Nice stuff. Thanks!

 

It looks like the MidiTrack III you shared is newer than the one I have.

 

Yours gives a date of: April 16, 1986

 

Mine is dated: December 6, 1985

 

I'm not sure if some of the other copies out there are newer or not; I really haven't checked thoroughly.

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I used to own the Hybrid Arts Miditrack III system, it had really good software and supported 128k. Hyrbrid Arts was *the* Atari ST midi software providor too. There were also Miditrack 1 and 2 for 48/64k Atari's.

 

 

 

Nice stuff. Thanks!

 

It looks like the MidiTrack III you shared is newer than the one I have.

 

Yours gives a date of: April 16, 1986

 

Mine is dated: December 6, 1985

 

I'm not sure if some of the other copies out there are newer or not; I really haven't checked thoroughly.

 

You are going to love this. Mike Calvin worked with the author and fixed a few bugs. I think I have a complete copy of the source code.

I have a typed letter from the author thanking Mike for fixing how the MIDI streams were encoded.I haven't dug into what the revisions were or if my file date is better because it's newer. I don't have any synths to play on right now.

 

So, let me know.

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