Synthesizing Mechanical Musical Instruments
By Jody Kravitz
Mike Carey wrote:
> Has anyone found a synthesizer that can duplicate the sound of a Dutch
> street organ solo section? I'm talking in terms of the ranks of pipes
> with tremolos (such as some of the flutes, violins, etc.).
Some time ago I wrote a program to allow me to listen to some of the tunes from Mike Ames' big Mortier dance hall organ. Mike plays the Mortier via MIDI. Of course the MIDI file is just an image of the book music, so one has to go to some trouble to emulate the organ. This includes interpreting the lock & cancel register changes, adjusting the percussion timing, and handling the Tremolo Flute pipes.
I used a Roland SC-55 Sound Canvas as the output device. This synth can be instructed, in real time, to assign varying numbers of sound generators to different MIDI channels and note ranges. This makes it possible to have multiple stops in a given division by simply turning on more sound generators. Consequently, it is not necessary to duplicate the MIDI events to get them to sound on several sound generators. This is important because there are sometimes *lots* of events all at once, and you can only send one MIDI event per millisecond!
Since the Tremolo Flute pipes in a European organ are actually frequency modulated, I used pitch-wheel changes to vary the frequency in real time. The SC-55 allows you to tell some of the sound generators to ignore the pitch wheel, so the pitch wheel can affect only the Tremolo Flute generators.
The SC-55 is not the perfect device for this project because the underlying sounds are weighted towards rock-and-roll sounds, and there consequently aren't a lot of organ pipe sounds. The results are credible, however -- certainly good enough for previewing and balancing a new musical arrangement.
> I'm also curious if anyone has found a synthesizer that can create
> a reiterating xylophone. I have a Casio CZ-101 synthesizer that can
> produce an excellent-sounding xylophone (great for nickelodeon songs).
> A Casio CZ-1000 is the same as a CZ-101, but with full-sized keys.
This might be a good project for an old '286 computer. With an MPU-401 sound card and a small-ish "C" program you could receive the MIDI signal in real-time, convert the xylophone events into multiple-events, and output the results back out on the MIDI out port.
Jody Kravitz
P.S. My thanks to Robbie, who's giving me time to spend with my family and even enough time to respond to some of the messages here.
[ You're welcome, Jody! :)
[
[ I wrote a little program which makes any channel 1 notes in the Midi
[ file reiterate while they're on. I use it mostly for audition of
[ arrangements which will be played on an instrument with a reiterating
[ snare drum, because my old synth doesn't create a snare roll sound.
[ -- Robbie
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(Message sent Fri 28 Feb 1997, 04:09:29 GMT, from time zone GMT-0800.) |
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