cooltouch

If you have a copy of the original CD, that would be great. I lost mine somehow. You can download an evaluation copy of Forte from its developers, but you can't save files with it, so other than just using it for something to mess around with, it's of no use.

This talk of old software that works well got me to thinking. What got me started with computer-based music composition was a little known software package called MidiSoft Studio. V6.0 was the last version and it is very unstable on Win7 or later. But it was reasonably stable on a Win98 platform. Midisoft Studio is basically a notation-based sequencer and has a fair level of power to it. Sometime in the "naughties" Midisoft went out of business. Then there was another outfit that took over briefly, released an update to v6.0, then they vanished. Then a German outfit bought the rights to it and renamed it to Forte. In its new guise, it's still basically the same old Studio -- even the old Studio .mmm files can be read and opened. But where Studio had been affordably priced, those Germans must think they found a software goldmine because they're asking a lot of money for all but the most basic version of the software now. I'm not really interested in paying what they're asking, mostly because it would be a trip down memory lane for me, more than anything else.

Hey Ian, the motherboard I was using for my Win98 rig was a MSI, running a 1.1 GHz AMD CPU. I don't recall anymore which flavor it was -- or is. I still have the board/cpu stashed away somewhere. I really liked that pair. I can recommend this MSI board, but it is full-size, so probably not what you're looking for. I don't recall the model number, and I won't know it until I figure out where I put it. It's in a box somewhere . . . So I've just built a new system that is now running Win10. I ended up replacing everything but the case, so I was left with a fully functioning Win7 system, and fortunately I had a spare case and power supply, so I was able to resurrect the Win7 system I've been running for the past 12 years or so. I want to keep a functioning Win7 system for legacy hardware and software. And I have another system that has Win7 installed, but this is an older, slower system, so I was thinking about wiping its drive and installing XP on it. But now, after this conversation, I'm thinking that maybe I should just go ahead and set it up for Win98. Or maybe install a boot manager and have both OSes, I dunno. I've been building my own PCs since 1993, and I've kept it all. So I've got everything from fast 486's to a Pentium or two and a few different AMD setups. I even still have at least one AT case and some AT motherboards, a couple of which have the old 16-bit ISA architecture. I think I have at least one ISA sound card, which might be interesting to resurrect. But I've run out of room, so I don't know if or when I'll ever get around to putting any of these old systems back into service.

This discussion began in another thread, but since it was drifting the subject off-topic, as Brad Saucier recommended, I'm starting a new thread. Win98SE was mentioned as a viable platform for older gear. So this is an option I'm gonna consider. Jokeyman123 provided us with a link to various Win98 editions: https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-98/98-second-edition I've used Cakewalk products for over 20 years for my DAW work. I bought a copy of Cakewalk's Pro Audio 8 back in 2000 and upgraded to Pro Audio 9, which I used to create, mix, and produce two albums worth of music. I was running Pro Audio 9 on a Win98 system and was reasonably happy with the performance, if not the stability, of my system. So anyway, I bit the bullet and upgraded my OS to XP, and was stunned to discover that the OS upgrade had broken PA9. The most expensive software I'd ever purchased, and it had become useless. And Cakewalk, instead of fixing PA9 so it would run in XP, came out with an entirely new product -- actually, it was PA10 with a new look, but they decided to rename it to Sonar. And they were asking an arm and a leg to upgrade to it from PA9. I balked. I was pissed that they decided to orphan PA9, so I just refused to pay their asking price. Well, in retrospect, that was pretty stupid because my music composition came almost entirely to a halt and this lasted for too many years. But now I'm interested in setting up a Win98 machine, not just so I can run PA9 on it, but so I can run a couple of old soundcards I have. One's a Soundblaster and the other's a Yamaha XG card. Both cards have synth chips on them, which was the way things were back then, back before software synths took over. With the Soundblaster card, its instrument quality was not bad, but there were a couple of instruments that were actually very good, and I have yet to come across one of them that is as good as the one found on this card. So for that single reason, I'd like to run a Soundblaster again. Now, as to the Yamaha card, well, it has that XG instrument set and many of them sounded quite good -- as I dimly recall -- it's been 20 years. I know I can find drivers for the Soundblaster, but finding a driver for that Yamaha card might end up being a challenge. Yamaha is not very good about supporting their old gear. I mention "alternate OSes" specifically as it refers to Linux. I've dabbled with Linux over the years, but I've never attempted anything as serious as music compositions -- or anything else related to music production. But from what I've picked up from various sites, there is something to be had in this arena., so I'm quite interested in finding out more..

OK, well, I still have some comments and questions, so I'm gonna start a new thread on the topic of old OSes.

I save my old OSes as well, not only that, I save my old machines. From my very first -- a PC-XT clone, to my most recently retired, which to be honest was faster than the machine I'm running now. Sorta disappointing, tbh. I dunno how much upgrading from Win7 to Win10 had to do with that. I've also been thinking about building a Win98 machine -- and just sucking it up, knowing I'll be dealing with a lot of BSODs. Unfortunately, my Win98 disk has sustained physical damage, so I'm gonna have to find another copy if I build that machine. Hey Ian, where on Earth did you get that quote -- supposedly from me? i kinda agree with some but not all of it. Yes I miss my old Soundblaster card(s) but that's mostly because of a couple of instruments that the cards' synths have. I never used softsynths with them and I never used more than one SB card at a time. I did, however, have a machine in which I had an SB card and a Yamaha XG card. The Yamaha card also had an onboard synth. That was an interesting setup.

Thanks, Jokeyman. Good to hear about the Midisorts working in Win7. I've just recently upgraded my DAW to Win10 and I have mixed feelings about it, to be honest. I still prefer Win7. So what I've decided to do is build a Win7 dedicated machine, for sake of legacy hardware and software, and hopefully be able to interface the two systems when it comes to my music. I've also got an older machine that is just collecting dust. I have Win7 installed on it but because of its RAM restrictions, it pokes along. So, I'm gonna install XP on it. And finally I'll be able to use a couple of old sound cards with synth chips on board. Some of those old sound cards' synth voices were mostly crap, but there were a few that were actually outstanding, one in particular that I've missed and would very much like to have access to again.

Thanks for the explanations. Sorry I didn't make myself more clear. In the Appendices, each patch has four values associated with it: the patch number, the patch name, the program change number, and the bank select MSB. Ian, the program you're referring to, where you write "Bank 0 Program 7 is grand piano" for example, would be interpreted in the Appendix as Bank 0 Patch Number 7. The Program Change value is not unique for each instrument. In fact, many instruments share the same Program Change value, according to this Appendix list. Oh, and just so's you know, I am familiar with a number of aspects of MIDI, including GM, GM2, XG, and even XG Lite. Plus, I have a couple of MIDI instruments that don't follow any of these standards -- an old Yamaha keyboard that predates the MIDI GM spec, and a Roland GR-33 guitar synthesizer that has patches which are more usable for a guitar synthesizer. But back to the topic, if we examine the Appendix, for example, 001 (patch number) is Stereo Grand Piano, with a Program Change of 0 and a Bank of 2. 002 is Stereo Bright Piano with a Program Change of 1 and also a Bank of 2. There are a total of 31 different piano voices, most of which share Program Change 0 or 1, a few of which share program changes of 2 or 3. And the banks are all over the place, ranging from 1 to 12. Now, with regards to my earlier comment about how Bank Change can affect an instrument's timber, this does seem to be what's going on when you look at patch numbers 001 and 002 -- there being a difference in brightness between the two. But it would appear that the .ins file takes this into account without having to specifically mention the Program Change value, since, when I play the two different patches, patch 002 is noticeably brighter than patch 001. So I guess this is answering my question, in a way, as to what the Program Change value is actually doing. And I guess, since Program Change values are not listed in the .ins files, it looks as if they can be safely ignored. Make sense? This is off-topic to the CDP, but I also have a Yamaha, a DGX-230, for which I've been searching for an .ins file and which I've, so far, found nothing. But this keyboard is both GM and XG Lite compatible, which got me to thinking that maybe I don't need a unique .ins file for it since Cakewalk supports both GM and XG (and XG Lite is backward compatible with XG). So first I just set it up as a GM instrument, with 128 voices, and it worked fine. Then I set it up as an XG instrument, with its expanded range of voices. What I found curious about doing this is that, with the XG spec, the first 128 voices are the same as GM, but they sounded different. Better to my ear, in fact. So this is an example of how different banks with the same but different voices can have an impact on how a device sounds. Heh, but don't get me started on the DGX's list of voices and how to interpret what's going on. The first 448 voices list a Bank Select MSB as 000 and Bank Select LSB values that are all over the place, frequently repeating, ranging from 0 to 127. Just as well it adheres to the XG spec, I'm figuring.

I had a similar problem with my DAW setup. I was getting a noise that sounded a lot like yours, and I posted a question about it on another forum -- don't recall which one it was now. One of the members there recommended that I run a cable from my audio interface's input to a guitar amp input. The amp didn't even need to be on, it just needed to have a grounded 3-prong power cable that was plugged into a grounded source. So it became an external ground for my setup. I gave it a try and it killed the noise problem. Doing this was a way of grounding the interface without having to jump through more complex and unnecessary grounding hoops.

I have an older CDP-220R. Its documentation came with an Appendix, which lists some 683 patches, plus 24 more drum and sample patches. The Appendix shows the patch number, patch name, program change, and bank select MSB (Most Significant Byte). My question has to do with the program change listed in this Appendix data. The program change numbers range from 0 to 116 with my CDP, and from what I understand, the numbers can range from 0 to 127. But from what I've read of "program change" is it has to do with changing patches while a piece of music is being played, hence program (or patch or instrument or whatever you want to call it) change. I found a copy of the MIDI Implementation for my CDP at world.casio.com and I've come across some interesting explanations as to how program change is implemented with my CDP. There is at least one parameter in which program change affects the sound, or timber, of a patch when it is received (but not sent). And I found that, with the bank select, it states when a bank value is received, that the bank isn't actually selected until a program change message is received. There appears to be some importance to this since the Appendix has 116 different values for program change. But here's where it matters to me -- I'm building an Instrument Definition file, used by Cakewalk (by Bandlab, previously Sonar) and the .ins files apparently do not have any parameters for a program change value. I've been following the work done by A. Dawson in the following link, and specific to my need, I copied much of the content of his message #13. It lists the CDP-200R, so I downloaded a copy of the 200R's Appendix, and found that it has a total of 653 instruments, whereas the 220R has 683. I haven't compared the two Appendices yet to see where the differences lie, but I'll get around to it one of these days. In the mean time, at least this file works with my 220R. Here's the thread where Dawson documents his efforts. I used the contents of message #13 to build my .ins file. https://www.keyboardforums.com/threads/ctk-4000-5000-wk-500-instrument-definition-for-cakewalk.22565/ So anyway, I'm wondering, can I just ignore these program change values? My CDP seems to be working fine using the .ins file I built from the above message, so I guess I'm not gonna worry about it. Or should I?

A simple way I view the difference between the old style DIN connectors and the USB connector is that devices with the DIN connectors can be daisychained together, not unlike the good old SCSI spec, whereas a device with the USB connector can only be connected directly to a computer. If you have a device with the old style DIN connectors and you want to connect it to a computer that doesn't have the old joystick/MIDI port, then you can get an adapter -- Roland makes one, called the UM-ONE. If, however, you are using an external audio interface with your computer, most of these have the old style DIN in/out ports, which get the job done. But I don't think you can daisychain instruments together when you use one of these audio interfaces, mostly I suppose because they hook up to the computer via an USB connection. So, what to do if you have more than one device with the old connectors (as I do)? Well, in my case, I have a Roland GR-33 guitar synthesizer, an old Yamaha PSR keyboard, and a Roland JV-1010 synth unit. All old-school stuff, but all of them still do a good job. So, what to do? Well, one possibility is to get a hold of a Midiman MidiSport. They were made in 2x2, 4x4, and 8x8 versions. But I've heard good and bad about these with later Windows OSes. I own a couple of the Midisport 2x2's, but to be honest I haven't tried them out with my new DAW setup -- yet. The other possibility is to record each MIDI device separately, but this gets tricky because they will only produce sounds in your DAW software as long as they're connected. The solution to this is to record the device's audio onto audio tracks in the DAW software. Then you're free from the restrictions caused by this USB/MIDI issue. Of the above three old-school MIDI devices I own, the only one I've used in recent years is the Roland GR-33, and what I've done with it was to first record the MIDI to set down a MIDI track via my audio interface -- because it has the DIN ports -- then hook up the audio outs of the GR-33 to the audio interface, and record the device's audio onto an audio track. I prefer doing it this way because, when it comes time to enhance or add effects, one has many more options available for audio than MIDI. So once the audio track is laid down, the MIDI track becomes superfluous, although I like to keep it as a reference.

I see -- wasn't aware of that. So then, I have a question. If I turn the volume down on the CDP, does this also lower the volume of the signal -- or reduce the velocity, I suppose -- that's being sent to my computer?

Yes. When I toggle it to "off" it shows Local as being "off." But sounds are still coming through the speakers. I visited Casio's website last night and found in their downloads area that they have a publication for using the CDP with a computer and MIDI. I was on a different computer, so I need to download that file to this one -- the DAW -- so I can read up on it to further depth. Maybe it'll give me a hint or two.

[Oops, I just noticed that there's a CDP section here, so dear moderator, please move this post if you feel it's off-topic for this sectrion.] The last time I used this function on my CDP was a few years ago, and as I recall, it worked fine. I haven't had an occasion to use my keyboard with my computer as a MIDI device for quite a while, but I'd like to start using it now on a regular basis. Problem is, following the instructions to set Local to "off" it doesn't seem to make a difference. I'm still hearing sound from my Casio's speakers. I've tried toggling it from on to off and back several times, hoping it might get unstuck or something, but it hasn't worked yet. So, I'm wondering, am I doing anything wrong? Missed a step? Doing things out of order, or? I've followed the instructions exactly in the manual as to how to set up the keyboard with the computer, and it's showing up in the software as it should. But I'm not getting any of the Casio's sounds through my computer's speakers, instead I'm getting them through the Casio's speakers. Oh, and I can send sounds from the software to the Casio, and they play through the Casio just fine. Just can't seem to get the "Local off" function to work. Any ideas if I'm doing something wrong?

Well, the title of this note indicates what I'm looking for -- an Instrument Definition file for the CDP-220R. Or barring that, instructions on how to create one. I've been looking through Cakewalk Sonar's Help Index, but so far haven't come across anything that is of much use. But I'm continuing to search. If I learn how to write one, I'll come back here and offer it up for the community to share. The CDP-220R has over 700 voices/sounds, so I dunno if just assigning it as a General MIDI instrument is a valid way to proceed.