A music transcription system for the Apple II microcomputer

This thesis supplies the software necessary to l) turn the APPLE into an organ/synthesizer by accepting input from the PAIA keyboard interface and generating the appropriate signals to drive the ALF synthesizer card; generate data representing a "digital recording" of what has been played on the keyboard; and replay the song using this song data; and 2) transcribe the "live" song data into musical notation which will be shown using APPLE graphics; generate musical data compatible with a graphics editor; and save song data on a magnetic disk for later retrieval either to replay the song, notate it, or edit it.

The software is written in the Apple version of UCSD PASCAL. The first part, due to the real-time nature of the problem, is written using the PAsCAL compatible 6502 assembler; the second part is implemented using the PAsCAL language.

This software provides a powerful musical instrument-with the addition of the editor, for example, one can play an original song, save it immediately, and come back later to change it.

The scope of this thesis is currently being extended to provide 1. a graphics-oriented music text editor; the data generated is compatible with the song data generated by the live playing routines.

2. real-time playing commands which alter the generated sound, i.e., change the envelope parameters, volume, and tone of the music.