Midijoy

Midi improvisation program for Atari ST

In earlier days there was the Atari ST computer. A great computer for musicians, with a very solid midi interface (midi is the language synthesizers understand).
I wrote midi applications for the Atari, and Midijoy was one of them. Midijoy aquired some popularity among atari users exploring midi. I started it in 1991, the last update was in 2003.

The idea is derived from a MIDI-program I used on the Mac (a very early Mac), called MUSIC MOUSE, programmed by Laurie Spiegel. The concept of MUSIC MOUSE was simple: The X and Y position of the mousecursor generates a value. Transform these values into midi note-on values, and there is music. MIDIJOY uses the same concept as Lauries program of using X and Y axis's in a grid to control the music. However the similarities end there as MIDIJOY expands on this concept giving it a very unique sound.

To make the interpretation of the mouse movement more musical, I assigned scales to the X- and Y-keyboard. I also fiddled around with the other midi- parameters, such as velocity, program changes, control changes (modulation, panning), even pitch bend. Scales can be transposed, the note length can be changed, the mouse can be assigned to have different functions. The scales can be edited, the function keys can be used to assign a X-Y position and a scale, and so on.

Midijoy recensie

Recensie van Midijoy in de voorloper van het blad Interface, dat audio- en midigebruikers wel kennen. Die voorloper heette Shiva Midi Bulletin dat nog werd verspreid op een aantal gekopieerde aan elkaar geniete velletjes. Vandaaruit is uiteindelijk Interface Magazine geëvolueerd.

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Midijoy images

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More Midijoy on old website

Midijoy is 'vintage', so are the old html pages of this website. So please fasten your seatbelt when going there and prepare for vintage webdesign with animated gifs, dark backgrounds and so on..

Go to the older MIDIJOY pages

What you will find there is:
• Midijoy manual in english
• The complete Midijoy for Atari ST as a download

Midijoy on emulators

There are two problems here:
• Midijoy makes extensive use of the Atari keyboard. But the Atari keyboard is not completely mapped to the keyboard of a modern Mac or Windows PC. So some functions are unreachable.
• My last search on atari ST emulators for the Intel Mac lead me to Nostalgia 1.5. But in the menu of Nostalgia the midi-option stays blank, I could not get Nostalgia to produce midi via Quicktime. Which it really did in an older version.
For Windows and Unix there appears to be the STEEM atari emulator, that handles midi by OMS.
As far as I know there is no atari ST emulator for Apple iOS (yet).

Examples

These are midi-files. So the outcome of the sounds is generated by your computer, often Quicktime.

Marimba1.mid

Hisanda.mid was made by Tim Conrardy

If the players are missing, these are the direct links to the midi files: marimba1.mid and hisanda.mid.

I am sorry to have little audio examples. The Atari ST is in the basement, I have no room for it in my current studio and I should have saved more audio generated by Midijoy in the past.