Music-X, How do I..?

Go to the Music-X main page.

I have lately been getting questions from a lot of you who are migrating from the Amiga to other sequencing platforms. This is how you do it:

How do I

• get hold of Music-X? (For running on an Ami or on a PC/Mac emulator)
  • You have to buy it, AFAIK, it's still copyrighted. The moment it's in the public domain, it'll be here. (You will typically have to pay around GBP20 for it, it's worth it.)

  
  

• get my files from the Ami to another system?
  • Whether we are talking about the MX binaries (for instance for emulator use, see above), or MIDI files, the key is the MS-DOS 720K floppy format. You need: An Amiga, running a utility called Cross-Dos (included in Workbench 2.0 and above, otherwise get it from Aminet, alternatively, an old hack called Dos-2-Dos also works, at least with wb 1.0-1.2), and one or more DS/DD (*not* HD, unless you have got one of the rare Amiga HD drives) floppies. A PC can't read Amiga floppies, but an Amiga can read and write MS-DOS ones. And, as a bonus, both Macs and Ataris can read MS-floppies as well. Run Cross-Dos, and simply copy what you need to the disks, as you would with a normal Ami disk. The device will typically be called dI0: Simple, isn't it? :) Please note that file names that don't fit the standard MS-format of 8.3 will be more or less scrambled. Blame Bill. Gates, that is.

  
  

• convert my MX-files to something my new sequencer can read?
  • If you are using a computer-based sequencer, the easiest way is to put your MX-files through the MX-to-MIDI utility that comes with MX. It will convert your file into a level 0 standard MIDI file. All your seqeunces will be slammed into one long mess, and you'll of course lose all of the internal samples, but something like Cubase or Logic will be able to extract what you need quite easily. You have to use the above floppy method for transfering the files. It is probably a good idea to name the new file *.mid, which is sort of a standard.
  • The second method, most useful when using a hardware sequencer, but it will work quite nicely with soft ones too: Connect the Ami and your new one's MIDI in and outs (Out to In, and vice versa), set the Ami to MIDI Master, the other to Slave, press play and record respectively, and hey, presto! Your MIDI data is recorded. This way, you can also get hold of the original individual MX sequences.

  
  

Corrections and/or additions to the usual address.