Experiences with Easy Beat... not MIDI export :-(

[atarisince1989]

Yesterday I gave a try to Easy Beat the sample based drum machine we have in the Atari Falcon Music & Audio Warez section.

Sadly, seems that the Save to MIDI option doesn't work at all. I could export to the other formats, but when trying MIDI I just get nothing at all. No .MID file created. This is a shame, as my main idea was to use it to create drum patterns to be used later in Cubase. BTW, how do you guys create drums for your compositions? Just curious.

On the other side, it works directly from the HDD. You just have to copy the contents of the 2 disks contained in the ZIP to a folder you want.

[mal7921]

Ah... do other functions work ok? Also don't you use a replacement desktop on your Falcon? Was this in use at the time?

As for drums, I tend to use Cubase's drum editor on external synths, though to be honest none of them are as punchy as the ones I can get using Logic's free rum machine on the Mac (Who's name escapes me at the moment), so I'm looking to make a lot of drum samples and use my trusty Roland S-750 as an ever expanding drum machine

At least I will when I get time to cable it all up, and with my ankle strapped up for support, crawling around routing cables is quite a challenge at the moment...

I'll hook up my other falcon and have a play just in case there is something I've missed along the line.

[atarisince1989]

As for drums, I tend to use Cubase's drum editor on external synths, though to be honest none of them are as punchy as the ones I can get using Logic's free rum machine on the Mac (Who's name escapes me at the moment)

Is that a standalone software or an add-on for Logic? A standalone program is what I'm after.

use my trusty Roland S-750 as an ever expanding drum machine

Man, you have very nice pieces of hardware. I have an Akai S2000 I bought second hand Not used too much yet. Just fully wired last weeked, and now I hope to start sampling. But it doesn't have HDD, so I'll be a bit limited.

[mal7921]

The drum machine is part of the Logic Studio package and is quite a nice piece of kit. Just enough editing options to make some nice adjustments to a sound without drowning you in a sea of paramiters, though the interface can be a little confusing to start with.

I think it's also included in Logic Express, but I'd have to check on that.

When I got the S-750, I was looking for the S-770 as that has a built in hard drive and 20 bit converters, but this came with a rather nice SCSI mageto-optical drive and also works rather nicely with my ZIP drive, although the maximum it can format and see on the device is 80MB.

The S2000 is a very flexible sampler for its time, and I think it was at a time when Akai started putting filters into its samplers to stop the advances of the Roland S series, which were starting to erode the Akai lead. I'm pretty sure they did some software so you could tweak settings from your computer, though I jave no idea what it was called or if it is hidden in some online archive somewhere.

On a seperate note, I saw you have the ST Format coverdisks, I'm pretty sure that on one of them there may be a wonderful little program called PSSEd which is an excellent little system exclusive editor for the underrated Yamaha PSS480/580/680/780 2 operator FM keyboards. If you can find one of those (The PSS680 is best) and that software, you have a cheap powerful synthesizer in a home consumer package.

[atarisince1989]

The drum machine is part of the Logic Studio package and is quite a nice piece of kit. Just enough editing options to make some nice adjustments to a sound without drowning you in a sea of paramiters, though the interface can be a little confusing to start with.

I think it's also included in Logic Express, but I'd have to check on that.

I got a copy of Logic Express some time ago, and I found it quite complicate to use. Also, I was only aiming to use it for the mixing part, so I ended using Garage Band, which comes free with Mac OS X. I'm thinking about to buy a mixing desk very soon, so probably I'll just use Audacity (now that you guys opened my eyes to it ) for doing the final audio recording.

When I got the S-750, I was looking for the S-770 as that has a built in hard drive and 20 bit converters, but this came with a rather nice SCSI mageto-optical drive and also works rather nicely with my ZIP drive, although the maximum it can format and see on the device is 80MB.

magneto-optical drive... is it like a ZIP drive? I'm thinking about to get a second hand iOmega ZIP on eBay and attach it to the S2000. I think it would work.

The S2000 is a very flexible sampler for its time, and I think it was at a time when Akai started putting filters into its samplers to stop the advances of the Roland S series, which were starting to erode the Akai lead. I'm pretty sure they did some software so you could tweak settings from your computer, though I jave no idea what it was called or if it is hidden in some online archive somewhere.

I think you mean MESA. It comes with the S2000, but only works on Macintosh (the old ones) and W95. Also, you need a SCSI adaptor on your computer, which I don't have. Maybe a SCSI-USB adaptor would work.

On a seperate note, I saw you have the ST Format coverdisks, I'm pretty sure that on one of them there may be a wonderful little program called PSSEd which is an excellent little system exclusive editor for the underrated Yamaha PSS480/580/680/780 2 operator FM keyboards. If you can find one of those (The PSS680 is best) and that software, you have a cheap powerful synthesizer in a home consumer package.

Hmmm. Thanks for that. I'll have a look when I'll be at home. My Internet connection is off since last night, so I cannot check from here. The problem is that I have virtually no more available space for another keyboard. I should start thinking about to rent a bigger flat

[mal7921]

The magneto-optical drive is the predecessor to CD burners in some ways, though the disks are in special caddy's. Much more expensive than a zip or Jaz drive, and as CD burners came down in price, rather pointless too. A historical curiosity these days and nothing more.

Zip drives work really well though, and pretty easy to find media on things like ebay or (If your really lucky) freecycle. One thing to beware of though, if you have a 100MB Zip drive, do NOT put 200MB media into it as this could damage the unit (Same with 2GB Jaz disks into a 1GB Jaz drive). Having said that though, you would have to force the media in. Older media will go into the newer higher capacity drives though without issue.

But then again, I've never yet managed to get a 2GB Jaz Drive to work on either of my Falcons...

As for MESA, worth picking up a PowerMac 5500 for? These have built in TV tuners too which work really well. I got mine looking for a 2nd hand TV for attaching a Nintendo 64 to, it was either £15 for a 15" TV or 99p for a Powermac 5500 (Guess which one I went for...). With a cheap MIDIman interface and a MIDI Merge box it can sit in parallel with the rest of the kit and run old sysex editors modulating patches

[xfalcon]

Sadly, seems that the Save to MIDI option doesn't work at all. I could export to the other formats, but when trying MIDI I just get nothing at all. No .MID file created. This is a shame, as my main idea was to use it to create drum patterns to be used later in Cubase.

It seems to be that I have the same problem.
I have some problems to load a song. Load SNG files seems not to work, but when I load a *.esg file with the sng button then it's works.

[mal7921]

I'm connecting up my other Falcon tonight to have a quick look into this, it may be that I'll have to see if there is another version of the software out there.

[mal7921]

I'm connecting up my other Falcon tonight to have a quick look into this, it may be that I'll have to see if there is another version of the software out there.

Yes indeed, MIDI file saving does not work, at least on the ZIP file. Has anyone tried the MSA file yet?

Edit - Updated download page to reflect this issue, also did anyone have a problem quitting the program? My Falcon would freeze, though this machine is also the one with all the Cubase audio issues to could be related to that I guess (Or the Falcon wing RAM expansion board)

[atarisince1989]

Edit - Updated download page to reflect this issue, also did anyone have a problem quitting the program? My Falcon would freeze, though this machine is also the one with all the Cubase audio issues to could be related to that I guess (Or the Falcon wing RAM expansion board)

No problems here when quitting so far.

Edited: My specs when running it: TOS 4.04 + NVDI5. IIRC desktop configuration is 256 colours, 80 columns, double lines on

[xfalcon]

I also don't have problems with quitting.
using
single tos, nvdi5.0, gemini desktop

[mal7921]

Probably this machine then, using games and wordprocessing/DTP stuff it's fine, as soon as you load Cubase Audio it's bomb and reboot time.

Trouble is my Cubase Audio Falcon does not have sound...

I'll get them fixed up one day.

On the MIDI file saving issue, this looks like it is a problem across the board as copies of the software fom other sources have the same issue, so the hunt is on for a later version...

[atarisince1989]

On the MIDI file saving issue, this looks like it is a problem across the board as copies of the software fom other sources have the same issue, so the hunt is on for a later version...

Softjee still develop software for the Atari?

[mal7921]

Sadly not, but this is a program that is quite old now and surely (Hopefully) they would have at least released a later version that a 1.00 release.

[atarisince1989]

In this (http://www.fora.gr/wmc/software.html) website is mentioned a version 1.01 for BeOS platform, though I'm not sure if it's the same software, because the description doesn't match with a drum machine.

There is another mention to EasyBeat for BeOS here: http://www.driceland.com/cgi-bin/rhum3.pl?msg=50,6, but no mention about version.

A part from that... I haven't found anything else on Google