The World Turning project (Feb 2006)
I dug up ancient files from 1995 and 1996 to see if it would be possible for me to recreate a song from this record at this late date. Back them I was using either the MasterTracks Pro or Opcode Vision MIDI sequencer on an old Macintosh...all of which are long gone.
I was actually able to open the old MIDI files in Sonar 4. I fiddled around trying to get it to talk to a GM soft synth that comes with Sonar, but it doesn't have all the sounds that the old SC-88 did. Fortunately I still have my venerable Roland SC-880, which understands all the commands from the Sound Canvas line from the SC-55 to the SC-88 Pro.
One problem that cost me an hour was trying to load the old SysEx commands into the SC-880. Sonar, like a lot of other synths, can't seem to handle SysEx as part of a track. But I found an old copy of Cakewalk Plasma 1.0 (the precusor of Sonar) on a CD that came with a Computer Music magazine. For some reason, that was able to play the SysEx track into the SC880 fine.
I dug up ancient files from 1995 and 1996 to see if it would be possible for me to recreate a song from this record at this late date. Back them I was using either the MasterTracks Pro or Opcode Vision MIDI sequencer on an old Macintosh...all of which are long gone.
I was actually able to open the old MIDI files in Sonar 4. I fiddled around trying to get it to talk to a GM soft synth that comes with Sonar, but it doesn't have all the sounds that the old SC-88 did. Fortunately I still have my venerable Roland SC-880, which understands all the commands from the Sound Canvas line from the SC-55 to the SC-88 Pro.
One problem that cost me an hour was trying to load the old SysEx commands into the SC-880. Sonar, like a lot of other synths, can't seem to handle SysEx as part of a track. But I found an old copy of Cakewalk Plasma 1.0 (the precusor of Sonar) on a CD that came with a Computer Music magazine. For some reason, that was able to play the SysEx track into the SC880 fine.
tim p scott at
