Category Archives: MIDI

My unreleased MIDI program for the Kawai K4 synthesizer

I recently shared the story about my first commercial CoCo product, the Huffman K1 Librarian. This was a MIDI librarian for the Kawai K1 synthesizer. In that article, I mentioned that I later sold my K1 to buy a more-better Kawai K4 synthesizer. What I did not remember is that I apparently made a K4 librarian, as well!

The K4 version was very similar to the K1 original, but the menu was updated to reflect how patches were organized on the K4. It appears the K4 has single patches, blocks of patches, and a way to transfer everything at once.

It also had the same disk command menu.

This version shows a 1991 copyright, so two years after the K1 original in 1989. Although the title screen references Rulaford Research, I do not recall it ever being a product they sold. I’m not sure if anyone ever had a copy of it other than myself. If you know otherwise, please leave a comment.

Thirty two years later and I am still (re)discovering stuff.

Until next time…

Huffman K1 Librarian, my first commercial product

Although I was “this close” to having my *ALLRAM* BBS sold by a well-known CoCo company back in 1983 it wasn’t until 1989 that something I wrote appeared for sale in the pages of Rainbow Magazine.

Rainbow Magazine, November 1989, Page 111.

I had gotten my first musical keyboard (a Suzuki Keyman PK-61) during high school, and then acquired a Casio CZ-101 synthesizer. After graduation in 1987, I purchased the CoCo MIDI interface from Rulaford Research. This started my love for MIDI and creating keyboard music which I still enjoy today (just without MIDI, as it’s been replaced by virtual instruments on a computer and USB piano keyboards).

There were two main types of MIDI programs. A sequencer allowed recording the keys pressed on a MIDI keyboard and playing them back. This was a high-tech player piano, but instead of a roll of paper with holes punch in it triggering hammers hitting strings, it was serial byte codes going to a synthesizer or sound module playing notes. Lester Hands’ sequencer was quite an achievement for a 64K CoCo.

The second type of program was called a librarian. These programs would use special messages the synthesizer supported to download sound data (the “patch” or “voice” as keyboards called them) and save it to tape or disk. You could later upload that information back. This allowed saving out all the sounds a keyboard made, and loading in new ones. Or, backing up custom sounds you created.

There was a third type know as an editor, but I never had any of those so I cannot really comment on them.

I recall buying a Casio CZ-101 Librarian from Rulaford Research.

I eventually saved up enough to buy a Kawai K1 full-size synthesizer. I learned enough about how the CoCo MIDI hardware pak worked (thanks to my Commodore friend Mark finding the data sheet) to create routines to read and write data through it. This, and some technical information on the SysEx (system exclusive) MIDI messages of the K1 led me to create a librarian for that synth. I had been in communication with Cecil Houk of Rulaford Research and he suggested putting my name in the title so it would be an instantly unique title (rather than something generic like “Kawai K1 Librarian”).

The end result was the Huffman K1 Librarian, shown here at version 1.2. I have no recollection of what changed between 1.0, 1.1 and this version.

At the time, while many of us had copies of software we did not purchase, I didn’t like having copies of anything that asked me to not copy it. I included the message “Support the future of music on the Color Computer. Please do not pirate this program.” on the title screen.

The main menu allows sending a single patch (voice) to and from the K1, or a block (which was a bank of many patches).

I do not recall much about how the K1 LCD screen looked, but I know it used an uppercase “I” or “E” (internal/external) as well as lowercase “i” or “e” for the singles voices.

The voices were divided up in to four banks (lettered A to D) with 8 patches in each. It was basically octal! This is the only time I’ve seen base-8 numbering used (though in this case, it would be like A1-A8 to D1-D8 rather than 00-38 in octal).

To dump (upload) a patch to the synthesizer, you had to type the name of the patch file. I built-in a Directory command similar to how the Casio Librarian did it.

This may have been the first time I ever made use of DSKI$ to manually parse the directory table of the CoCo’s disk format.

I also added a disk menu to give a fuller directory, kill files, rename files, and copy files.

Here was my copyright notice in REMarks at the top of the program. From looking at the CLEAR command, that reminds me that my assembly language MIDI routines loaded at &H7000.

Also note I set a variable DR (current drive) with a PEEK, rather than hard-coding a default of drive 0. This meant if the user had done a “DRIVE 1” and was running it from that drive, it would default to using drive 1. I had forgotten about this technique.

I guess I typed too soon. At the end of my programmer version notes, so now I know about 1.1 (add error checking) and 1.2 (more error checking). Nice.

Beyond looking at the menu screens, today I have no way to do anything with this program. I sold my Kawai K1 long ago, and upgraded to a K4 :) I eventually sold that and replaced it with a Yamaha W7.

Humble beginnings, and fun times. I hope you enjoyed this look back at my earliest commercial product.

Until next time…