CLASSIX1. The music of J. S. Bach arranged for the Amiga by ROB BAXTER. This is the first of what I hope will be many collections of fine classical music for the Amiga. I have chosen Bach for my first Amiga release for two reasons: A) I like Bach (what better reason could there be?) B) Bach's very linear music adapts beautifully to this electronic medium. Bach purists might not approve of my "computer orchestra" but there seemed little point in sticking to conventional scoring - you can always buy a Bach L.P. if you want that! The sounds may be new, but the music is pure, note-for-note Bach. I have made no attempt to "jazz up" the music, it is humbly presented in its new Amiga clothes as written! About the music: The BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS were written around 1721 and dedicated to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg. There are six concertos in total, each one completely different in character. Nos. 3 and 4 are presented on this disk. BRANDENBURG CONCERTO NO. 3 in G Major was originally scored for three violins, three violas, three 'cellos, double bass and harpsichord continuo. Needless to say, my instrumentation is nothing like that! The first movement swings its relentless way along with an unlikely ensemble of strings, glockenspiels and purely "synth-like" sounds - although there is a solo violin tucked away in the mix... somewhere! In contrast, the third movement gives the brass and woodwind sections a chance to shine! Bach did not provide a true second movement for the third Brandenburg concerto, he merely wrote two chords marked "Adagio", possibly expecting the performer to improvise his own slow movement. With this in mind, I have "invented" a slow movement for this concerto based on Bach's "Arioso" which leads up to those two final chords. BRANDENBURG CONCERTO NO. 4 in G Major was scored for solo violin, two recorders, strings and harpsichord continuo. In my interpretation of this concerto, I have possibly been a little more faithful to the master's intentions! Certainly in the solo sections I have attempted to reproduce the violin and recorder/flute parts called for by the score, but in the tutti sections the instrumentation is a little more open ended. PRELUDE AND FUGUE NO. 7 comes from a collection of 48 keyboard preludes and fugues in two parts (24 each), originally entitled "The Well-Tempered Clavier". For obvious reasons this compilation is affectionately known as "The Forty Eight"! The Prelude presented on this disk is one of the most magnificent of all the preludes in the forty-eight and is itself divided into three distinct sections. First is a stately introductory passage which for this version is performed with bright brass and harpsichord tonalities. There then follows a beautiful and delicate, almost ethereal passage which is carried by soft string tones. The final and main section of the prelude is actually a four part fugue which in this performance is played by a trio of violins backed up by a solid, woody bass line. The prelude finally resolves into a glorious, heraldic restatement of its opening. The Fugue proper which follows is light and good humoured and in complete contrast to the gravity and majesty of its Prelude. I have chosen tonalities which I hope reflect this! TOCCATA AND FUGUE IN D MINOR is just a little bit famous! Bach wrote this organ extravaganza when he was a young man and his youthful exuberance spills out in every passage! The Toccata in particular is so well known it has almost become part of popular folklore! I have presented the Toccata in a fairly conventional manner, using very imitative pipe organ sounds which work quite well... watch your speakers though! The Fugue on the other hand is performed by a surreal set of instruments which I think complement the traditional organ voicings quite well. I often think that the Fugue is more exciting than the Toccata, it surges along like a great river, almost threatening to burst its banks! -------------- All the music on this disk was entirely realised in Aegis SONIX using instruments created with SYNTHIA. There are no sampled instruments or sounds on this disk. SYNTHIA provides a complete sound synthesis environment on the Amiga which is enormously powerful and flexible. Of course it has its limitations like any good synthesiser and these must be worked around but the ammount of creative freedom this package brings to music-making on the Amiga is considerable. It means that all my instruments are TRULY my own which in turn means that I can at last develop a sound and style which is unique to me! I hope this collection brings a fresh dimension to Amiga music. Enjoy.... -------------- I'm sorry this collection isn't better presented, there isn't much room left on the disk for graphics, nor is there much space in chip RAM for many instruments as well as pretty screens! Roll on the Enhanced Chip Set with a whole Meg of chip RAM!!! There is an option in the main menu for turning the Amiga's audio filter back on again. When you boot this disk, the filter is disabled (unless you have an A1000, there is no way of turning off the filter by software means on that machine). All Amigas have this filter to reduce the audible effects of foldover, or "aliasing" as it is more commonly known. This manifests itself as a high whine on certain notes and is a by-product of the way the Amiga produces sound. In simple terms, the higher harmonics on some sounds try to get themselves reproduced above the so called "Nyquist Frequency" and consequently get folded back on themselves so that they are echoed, or "aliased" at frequencies below the Nyquist. These aliased frequencies generally bear no harmonic relationship to the note being played so the result to the listener is a slight inharmonic whine behind the note being played. Usually though, these "rogue" harmonics are low in intensity and tend not to distract to a great degree. However, they do irritate some listeners, which I suppose is why Commodore Amiga included the filter in the Amiga's specification - and which is why I have included an option to turn it back on again if you are one of these people! The problem with the filter though, is that whilst eliminating most of the aliased frequencies, it makes music sound like you're listening through cotton wool. I'd much rather enjoy the bright clear tones that the Amiga produces with the filter turned off! What is the Nyquist Frequency? The Amiga treats all sound data, be it produced by SYNTHIA, the SONIX "analogue synth" or by a hardware sampler in exactly the same way. It treats it as a sample! Therefore, regardless of the method of sound production there is a master sampling rate. The Nyquist Frequency represents the highest frequency that can be accurately reproduced by a digital audio system and is theoretically the sampling rate divided by two. Therefore, with a sampling rate of 10 kHz, the Nyquist frequency would be 5 kHz. In practice, the real Nyquist frequency turns out to be slightly less than half the sampling rate but here the math gets more complex, so I won't attempt to go into it mainly because it's largely beyond me!! The higher the sample rate, the correspondingly higher is the Nyquist, but the faster you sample the more memory you use up. At present, no matter how much extra RAM you've bolted onto your Amiga, all sound data must be confined to the first 512k of chip RAM in order for Paula to read it. So there is quite a severe trade-off between the sampling rate you use and the number of samples that can be held in chip RAM at any given time. SONIX and SYNTHIA compromise by using a sample rate of around 8 kHz - not "Hi-Fi" by any means, but the sound is still astonishingly good! The Amiga, together with SONIX and SYNTHIA are the answer to my prayers! WINGE AND WISH LIST... The sound capabilities of the Amiga are often overshadowed by its more obvious graphics abilities. There is no reason why a single "voice" cannot be a multi-note chord, even chords made up of different instruments. None of the sound editors currently on the market (I include SYNTHIA here) offer this facility, nor is it possible with existing software to create a glide (with the exception of SONIX). Perhaps you know better... or could do better... yourself! Although the Amiga has a multi-tasking operating system, no music editor or player that I'm aware of allows the loading of new instruments as the music is playing. This would allow for mega-long musical opuses with loads of instruments! I suppose I can dream..... --------------- This disk is dedicated to Wendy Carlos. Thanks to PSW ROB BAXTER Manchester, U.K. JULY 1989