Several few years ago, three things happened at once. I learned how to program in perl, to use CGI, and had batches of free time while compiling a nauseatingly inefficient piece of software for a job. So, filling that time wisely, I developed a piece of software that looks like
It lets you enter scale degrees into a web form. When you press Submit, it uses CGI, Perl, and a MIDI library for Perl to quickly generate a MIDI file that transposes your melody according to the sequence you typed it.
In fact, if you're on the Internet right now, you can go to the web page where it's located and try it out!
Encouraged by the possibilities of that first program, I gave it a second voice, in order to be able to make harmonies.
As you can see, it's basically the same thing, except that it now has two voices.
After several more days of 5-minute long compiles, I decided that in addition to a third voice, it needed THREE levels of transposition.
And once I had rendered that, I started to create truly interesting melodies. To the point where I didn't want to lose them anymore...I wanted to work on them further when I got home from work that night. Therefore, I did some more Arbeit, and eventually, I created a
I also got the Tempo button working, and added more
All of that development enabled me to make more complex songs, like this one:
Check out more songs that I made with the program:
The setup of for both of these was rather elaborate and fun to describe. So here's how it went: I transferred the .mid files into my ASR-X. The ASR-X played the MIDI sequence into a SIDStation, a Juno 1, and an FR-777. Those three synths went through a mixer into a stereo 31-band E.Q. and an "Ultramizer" compressor. The compressor's output went into one side of my SP-808's (a sampler) outputs. The SIDStation used a distortion pedal, the Juno 1 employed a SampleTrak, and the FR-777 made use of a rack delay. The drums were sequenced and synthesized on my SPS-1 and went into the other set of sampler inputs. The SP-808 with its rock-stable MIDI Clock served as the master for the drum machine and the ASR-X. After digitizing each song in a number of takes, I picked the best one, transferred it to my PC and did the tedious stuff like edit quiet parts out of the beginning and end and covert it to other audio file formats.
