ABOUT BEET5M1, BEET5M2, BEET5M3 and BEET5M4 =========================================== Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in C Minor, Opus 67 In 1991, I sequenced Beethoven's Fifth Symphony *in its entirety*. Yup, these files have ALLA notes, and in the right order, too!! That's some- thing like forty minutes-worth of MIDI music!! You can grab either the MIDI files (.mid files) and/or Professional Composer scores for the Mac (.pro files). If you try to play this piece on your MIDI gear, be forwarned that you need a *heckuva lot* of MIDI horsepower, especially for the fourth movement where there are as many as 23 separate tracks blaring away simultaneously!! LEGAL: First of all, all of the enclosed files are in the public domain, so feel free to use them as you wish (commercially or otherwise) and to redistribute them far and wide. Second, you may modify the files as you wish, but PLEASE be sure to add a description of your changes to this ReadMe file and to distribute my comments intact with your modifications. Third, it took an *enormous* amount of time (three weeks) to enter the score from sheet music, so if you want to make a fellow hacker very happy, drop me a postcard or letter, or a few $$$ to keep the caffeine and midnight oil flowing here. Don't feel any obligation though -- but cheer me up enough and you may very well see Beethoven's Sixth and Ninth Symphonies, or other symphonic works, transcribed at some point in the future. You can send e-mail to the following address: bert@netcom.com Send all other correspondence to: Roberto Sierra Tempered MicroDesigns P.O. Box 170638 San Francisco, CA 94117 TECHNICAL INFORMATION: The MIDI files do not contain program, volume, or other synth-specific changes, so it should be a fairly simple matter to adapt the piece to fit any MIDI setup of sufficient horsepower. The Pro Composer files lack the all important tempo changes between sections and at firmatas. Also, the Composer files contain the score *as written*, whereas the MIDI files have all instruments voiced to their true pitch, after transposition. Thus, Clarinet and Horn parts written in Bb or Eb come out sounding right in MIDI. You may need to add or subtract an octave here or there to fit your gear, but what's there already should come pretty close right off the bat. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in C Minor, Opus 67, consists of four movements for the instruments listed below. Beet5m1 is the first movement, Beet5m2 is the second, and so on. If played in sequence, there should be no pause between the third and fourth movements -- you may want to combine these in your sequencer to play them as a single sequence. The MIDI files are multitrack files (Type 2), so you'll need to use a sequencer capable of reading Type 2 files. There are 18 tracks in the first three movements, and 23 tracks in the fourth movement, as shown below. I also have 16-track versions of the files available if anyone needs them. The 16-track files have had paired instruments joined (like Oboe 1 and Oboe 2 combined into a single track, for example). 1) Piccolo* 2) Flute 1 3) Flute 2 4) Oboe 1 5) Oboe 2 6) Clarinet 1 7) Clarinet 2 8) Bassoon 1 9) Bassoon 2 10) Contrabassoon* 11) French Horn 1 12) French Horn 2 13) Trumpet 1 14) Trumpet 2 15) Alto Trombone* 16) Tenor Trombone* 17) Bass Trombone* 18) Timpani 19) Violins I 20) Violins II 21) Violas 22) Cellos 23) Double Basses Notes: * Ñ The piccolo, double bassoon and trombones appear only in the fourth movement. The first three movements require a bit more than 32 notes of polyphony, and the fourth movement requires much more since there are several extra instruments and often the entire orchestra is blasting all at once very rapidly. If you have a dual MIDI interface, or can otherwise handle the full 23 tracks, you may want to map individual instruments to the appropriate synthesizer channels and MIDI ports. You can map some of the instruments onto the same channel, if you wish (as I merged the woodwinds and brass pairs to prepare a 16 track MIDI version), but you should know that at times both instruments of a group are playing the same note. It will sound a little better if these instruments are kept on separate channels (maybe even detuned slightly) but this is a minor point in the grand scheme of things. I've got a Proteus/1 and Roland D-70 here, which contain just enough horsepower between them to handle all the instruments (more or less -- the strings drop out from time to time during parts of the first and fourth movements, but I've been able to get around this by mixing multiple passes on DAT). If you have either of these devices, here are the presets I've been using -- they sound darned good to me. At some later date, I will make SysEx available for these settings, but it takes a lot of time to prepare, and there are a lot of technical issues to resolve for the D-70. PROTEUS/1 PRESETS: Channel Instrument Preset Volume Pan ----------------------------------------------------------- 1 Trumpet 1 Solo Trumpet(36) 56 -2 2 Trumpet 2 Solo Trumpet(36) 56 +0 3 Double Bassoon Bassoon 1(**) 40 +5 4 Cellos String Orch(33) 96 -4 5 Double Basses String Orch(33) 118 +1 6 Tympani MedicineDrum(61) 100 P 7 Oboe 1 Uboe(115) 60 -4 8 Oboe 2 Uboe(115) 60 -2 9 Clarinet 1 Clarinet 1(**) 60 +3 10 Clarinet 2 Clarinet 1(**) 60 +5 11 Bassoon 1 Bassoon 1(**) 45 +2 12 Bassoon 2 Bassoon 1(**) 45 +4 13 French Horn 1 French Horn(170) 72 -4 14 French Horn 2 French Horn(170) 72 -2 15 Alto Trombone Trombone 2(171) 66 -6 16 Tenor Trombone Trombone 2(171) 66 -4 +Bass Trombone ROLAND D-70 PRESETS: Channel Instrument Preset Volume Pan ----------------------------------------------------------- 1 Flute 1 Ffflute(15)*** 14 >< 2 Flute 1 Ffflute(15)*** 14 >< +Piccolo 3 1st Violins Strings(9)**** 35 6> 4 2nd Violins Strings(9)**** 35 <1 5 Violas Strings(9)**** 35 <4 ** Ñ These are special Proteus patches I got off a bulletin board. Let me know if you want a copy. *** Ñ Use only the second tone (Flute 1). Disable the first tone (Pan Pipes1), or you'll hear occasional notes dropping out. **** Ñ Use only the first tone (Strings 2). Disable the second (Str. Pad 1) and third tones (Rosin.Pad1), or you'll hear notes dropping out. OK, so the Uboe patch doesn't sound ANYTHING like an Oboe, and the Medicine Drum isn't REALLY going to sound like Tympani... What can I say? I wish I had a Proteus/2 or SampleCell, but I don't, so these sounds are the closest I could find. Anyway, this should be enough to get y'all started. Let me know if you encounter problems Ñ I'll be glad to upload a fix. I've been told that my arrangement is a bit 'dry', lacking volume and tempo variation, but that's partly because I haven't had the time to go back and add that to the MIDI files. Also, I don't want to add any synth-specific dynamics to the MIDI sequence, as then people will start to have trouble adapting the piece to suit their MIDI gear. QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, AND OBTAINING CASSETTE TAPES That is all. Hope you enjoy this splendid symphonic masterpiece. Please contact me at bert@netcom.com for questions and comments. For those who want to hear what this piece is supposed to sound like, you can send $7 to the address below and I will send you a cassette tape (the money covers my cost, plus a bit for the time and effort spent). Please indicate the title of the song(s) you are interested in, whether you prefer Dolby B, C or no noise reduction, and allow N weeks for delivery. [For delivery outside the US, enclose 5$US and a self-addressed prepaid envelope.] ---> Roberto Sierra Tempered MicroDesigns P.O. Box 170638 San Francisco, CA 94117 bert@netcom.com ---------------------------------------------- "Information gladly given, but safety requires avoiding unnecessary conversation." -- MUNI ----------------------------------------------