- - -  AMD

Yes, AMD as an acronym should be okay (and it would be even better to
incorporate "mechanical music" in a sophisticated way).

- - -  MEMUSI 96

AMD is an electronic newsletter too - so it has to be updated very
quick (what do I say?) and even I am in a great hurry I _have_ to find
the time to send a (quick and dirty) report of MEMUSI 96, which took
place here in Vienna from 5. - 8. of September.

Yesterday the 14th traditional meeting of friends of *ME*chanical
*MUSI*c 1996 in Vienna/Austria was closed with

•        Wohlklingendes          melodius sounded
        Coethensches Classic
        Drehorgel               barrel organ
        Otium                   performance with cheerful basic sound

•at the roman-catholic church of St.Anton. I don't know the meaning of
'Coethensches' (if somebody wants to know that I can ask the inventor
and "showmaster" Dr. Kurt Klimt, he will visit Vienna again within 3
weeks).  Never heard such a mixed concert of serenades, chorals, and
ouvertures from Haydn, Bach, Liszt, Haendel, Mozart, Vivaldi, Puccini
and others for more than one and a half hours without any stop. And the
final tune, yes yes, "Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald" (stories from
Vienna wood) from Johann Strausz Sohn, unbelieveable in a church - but
no problem because Monsignore Vollnhofer, the local priest, told us
then his pleasure. The concert was done by

•        Jan Ables - Uithuizer Meeden/Netherlands
                20 Raffin, Ueberlingen barrel organ
        Josef Lechner - Schongau/Germany
                37 Jager & Brommer, Waldkirch
        Angelina Abels - Uithuizer Meeden/Netherlands
                31 Raffin, Ueberlingen
        Dr. Kurt Klimt - Thurau/Germany
                20 Raffin, Ueberlingen

•On 4th of september the festival started besides the official program
with a visit to the grave of Prof. Karl Nagl - he died 2 years before
and was not only a well known accordion player and singer of the
"Wienerlied". Coming from his profession as an organ builder he was
also the owner of a great collection of various mechanical music
instruments now continued by his sons Karl and Peter Nagl. After then a
movie was shown at a traditional "Heuriger", presented by the "Wiener
Volksliedwerk" (Vienna Folk Song Archive), showing performances of Karl
Nagl.

Next day - after the participants played in the boarding houses in
various districts of Vienna, who did sponsoring of the festival, the
meeting was inaugurated paired with the opening of Tivoli-Center, a new
stage-room at "Boehmischer Prater" (Bohemian Prater: note the
difference 'The one with the highest placed giant wheel').

Also the CD "MEMUSI - Drehorgelmusik aus dem Boehmischen Prater No.1"
was presented in memoriam to Otto Geissler and Prof. Karl Nagl. You can
hear a cross-section trough the Vienna scene of automatic music at a
very good high quality level. Postal orders may be placed to

   Club Monte Laa
   attention Mr. Wilhelm Heidenhofer
   Laaer Wald 218
   A-1100 Vienna / Austria
   Tel. & Fax  +43 1 6163912

the price is ATS 190 and cost of dispatch. (Robbie: wait a while, snail
mail is still carrying this piece to you).

On Friday the players performed the whole day at some local centers and
streets/pedestrian zones.

Saturday was very cold, storm and rain - so the reason why MEMUSI took
place one week later than usual, the combination with great festival of
"Millenium" (Ostarrichi was first founded in 996), could not happen -
no performances at all. Only the mass at Evangelic (Augsburger
Bekenntnis) church at Dorotheergasse could come off.

On Saturday, the last day, the weather was still very cold, but playing
was possible in the center of Vienna as well as Boehmischer Prater.
Surprisingly many people was perhaps thinking "there is no bad weather
only bad clothing" and come to hear and cheer to the various
performances - so the meeting did not lack of the festival character.

Although I was out of town nearly half of the meeting, thanks to
Wolfgang Geissler, who introduced myself to Jan Ables, the owner of a
"Tanzbaer" (dancing bear) - self playing accordion from Hofbauer, I
could see and even play on that 20 tones instrument. And I also had a
short talk with Kurt Schumacher from Stuttgart/Germany, owner of 37er
Hofbauer Harmonipan - now I know much more about that electronic
controlled instrument.

In a short way - that's all till now.

- - -  MIDI 2 WAV

The FM-synthesizer use F-requency M-odulation to simulate musical
instruments ... and do a poor job on _real_ instruments.

The wavetable-synthesizer simple read out pre-sampled sounds from a memory
... sound quality seems to depend mainly on the length of the recording.

(Does anybody know something about the quality of "physical
modeling"-programs?)

But what algorithms are occupied from Midi-2-wav render programs?
Sorry, Tommy Anderberg, about a half a year ago I tried your
'WAVmaker'-program but was not able to render a Midi-file within a
reasonable portion of time; maybe your collection of program-modules
will have a more intuitive GUIdance as a Windows-version?

Greetings from Austria - the country with no atomic-energy-power-plants
as to people election.  :)

Claus Kucher