cyclone3d wrote:yawetaG wrote:yawetaG wrote:
Also picked up this fairly beaten up Yamaha Special XG CD-ROM (although I hope the actual CD-ROM is in a better condition than the case...):
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These kind of CD-ROMs usually were included with later versions of Yamaha MIDI modules or keyboards, and include upgrades not included in the original release. This one should contain MIDI files specially developed for XG modules, pictures of some Yamaha-sponsored artist, and some Mac and PC software.
Received this bugger, and it seems I struck gold, as it's likely the CD-ROM that was included with Yamaha's OPL-4 Sound Edge sound card. Which means it includes the drivers and utilities for that (rare) sound card, including Voyetra Audio Station and an utility to convert Roland GS MIDI files to General MIDI files. Besides that, it has the Yamaha CBX-T3 driver for Windows 3.1, beta drivers for Windows 95 and NT, demos of Visual Arranger and Score Reader, MacOS classic drivers, 6 HyperGroove demo MIDI files, 10 Yamaha demo XG MIDI songs from various artists, and some low resolution images of this Daisuke Asakura Live album.
I would be very interested in an ISO of that CD. Would also be great if it could be uploaded to vogonsdrivers.
Guess it's time to actually get an account for the Internet Archive's CD-ROM repository...
The only thing to keep in mind about the Yamaha CD-ROM is that it was made for the Japanese market, so most of the programs and documentation are in Japanese - but not the Sound Edge utilities (checked those; they only suffer from an installer that tries to install them to the CD-ROM itself 🤣 ).
Other stuff received yesterday:
Japanese Singer Songwriter 4.0, released in 1998 for a whopping 38,000 yen:
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The box is pretty much mint. Manuals:
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Unfortunately, these show the software is almost entirely in Japanese, except curiously for a large part of the dialog boxes (IIRC, the way certain Windows 3.1/95 programming toolkits worked back in the day, changing menu text was easier than dialog box text). Singer Songwriter did have a English-language release way back at version 1.0, so I guess they kept the option for an English version open in later versions...
The manuals themselves are exemplary:
- quick start guide that is actually useful, as it explains all of the basics.
- advanced guide
- reference manual
- music theory book (I'd love to see an English version of this, it just looks so good...)
- hardware set-up guide that explains how to hook up your PC with a variety of popular desktop audio production set-ups. Based on this one I suspect the program has support for a crapton of then-popular MIDI modules.
CD-ROMs:
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The Hypergroove hybrid CD-ROM contains MIDI samples and loops, and also audio tracks. The actual software CD has Korg's, Yamaha's, and Roland's MIDI drivers for Windows, Karaoke Station, Roland VSC-55 and VSC-88M software MIDI players, Yamaha S-YG20 (Win95 version) and S-YXG50 software MIDI players, Yamaha XG tools, VL Editor, XG-to-sysex converter, XG-viewer, some tool called XG checker, MIDI plug-ins for Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, and a offline copy of the then-website of Yamaha(!), and then there's Singer Songwriter 4.0 of course, with samples, MIDI files, sysex support for a variety of modules, etc.
Also, gotta love the name of the maker of Singer Songwriter: INTERNET. 😘