Ok, Latok and I have been playing around with the latest Meridian for a bit and I must admit: Michiel de Vries has done an amazing job on this one.

SMF files already sound very impressive, even though the OPL4 GM bank isn't quite finished yet. With a bit of editing you can improve the sound a lot by using FM-sounds as well.

After a bit of pressing random keys we even managed to track a little bit of music. However, as a tracker, Meridian still needs some improvements to make it useable. I suggest the following things to be added in the (near?) future.

• It should be possible to 'just' set the tempo in BPM
• As a default, all but one channels should be using the 'Acoustic Piano', the other one (preferably channel 10) should use the GM Drum kit
• As a default, the delta-step time settings should be pre-set to a setting which more or less matches the settings of Moonblaster Wave
• It would be nice if the Moonblaster FM sounds were added to bank 2 of the OPL4 soundbank. Very nice.
• While playing music, an indicator should show which step is being played at that exact moment.
• It should be possible to scroll up and down through the channels while playing.
• When creating a New Song, the cursor should move to step 1 on channel 1 of page 1
• It should be possible to import Moonblaster Wave 1.15 songs (less important, but still...)
• On the left side of the screen, you can see which instruments are used on which channels. It would be nice if I could select instruments here, too
• Undo functionality?? Pretty please?
• Saving a song should have some prevention against overwriting existing files

I know several of these things have been mentioned before, but I thought I'd sum the most important ones up in a thread dedicated to the latest beta version of this unique MIDI sequencer/tracker. With just a little bit more tweaking it could be the best musictracker you ever wanted to see for Moonsound. Go Michiel!!! Make it happen!!!! Please, add these features!! I'm begging you!!!!!!

May I add something to all this? I am also wondering how we're going to support the RAM integrated on all Moonsound cartridges. Will the openMSX (and NLMSX) emulator also have this RAM feature when emulating the Moonsound?

In Meridian there isn't an option to load samples in the RAM of the OPL4 yet. Is this going to be implemented? How do you think this is going to work out?

And about OPL4 soundbanks. You can load them in a different menu from the MIDI Soundbanks.....We should not forget that part of Meridian also still works. Of course, it does!! Including pitchbending and modulation already....

So I guess one can load an OPL4 soundbank and a MIDI soundbank at the same time? Both the soundmodule and the OPL4 are receiving data while playing a song?

But if I load a for example MT32 MIDI Soundbank in bank1, it will overwrite the OPL4 GM soundbank which is also in bank 1? How will that work out?

A bit confused now.....

And o yeah.....Of course, Meridian v4.0 will support realtime recording, right?

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Will the openMSX (and NLMSX) emulator also have this RAM feature when emulating the Moonsound?

If they don't, they're not emulating Moonsound but some imaginary device instead

It would be cool if the .MER file also contained information on which .OPL to load. Auto-loading the right bank rulez!

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>>Will the openMSX (and NLMSX) emulator also have this RAM feature when emulating the Moonsound?<<If they don't, they're not emulating Moonsound but some imaginary device instead

Well, I thought maybe they're just emulating the OPL4...Stupid me, thx GuyveR800

Another feature I would like to have (maybe it's implemented already, dunno) is the possibility to, while playing, stop the song at a certain page. Now I constantly use the <ESC> which goes to page 1...I remember Meridian had this feature in the past, but yesterday, I didn't succeed in finding the right button to do this....

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Will the openMSX (and NLMSX) emulator also have this RAM feature when emulating the Moonsound?

openMSX already has support for (flexible) sample RAM in Moonsound.

Aha, ok.....Well, that's all very good news. It would make the amount of Meridian users much larger if openMSX and NLMSX start supporting the Moonsound very well. Just yesterday, I tried some more Final Fantasy X midifiles on Meridian and they sound so incredibly GREAT.....I thought: 'Never ever has my Moonsound played such great sounding tunes'!

It's quite bizarre too. Before Meridian, there was this limited amount of OPL4-songs, made with Moonblaster. Now, with Meridian and the possibility to play MID-files, this whole kinda 'mysterious' thing has faded....You can play every f*cking song on your Moonsound you want to...

The following has been implemented:

• As a default, all but one channels should be using the 'Acoustic Piano', the other one (preferably channel 10) should use the GM Drum kit
  
• As a default, the delta-step time settings should be pre-set to a setting which more or less matches the settings of Moonblaster Wave
  
• When creating a New Song, the cursor should move to step 1 on channel 1 of page 1
  
• Saving a song should have some prevention against overwriting existing files
  

The following need to be done:

• It should be possible to 'just' set the tempo in BPM. Not so hard: now the tempo is represented as milliseconds per beat, easy to convert.
  
• It would be nice if the Moonblaster FM sounds were added to bank 2 of the OPL4 soundbank. Problem here is that bank 2 has 'only' 128 programs and there are over 200 FM sound defined in Moonblaster. You have to make a selection and make your own bank 2 for Opl4.
  
• While playing music, an indicator should show which step is being played at that exact moment. Working on it now.
  
• It should be possible to scroll up and down through the channels while playing. Easy to implement. By the way, the windows currently displayed will removed temporary while scrolling the tracks.
  
• It should be possible to import Moonblaster Wave 1.15 songs (less important, but still...) It is already possible to load 1.15 songs... is it that much different. Marcel told me it wasn't....
  
• On the left side of the screen, you can see which instruments are used on which channels. It would be nice if I could select instruments here, too. Yeah, this good old feature needs to be reimplemented.
  
• Undo functionality?? Pretty please? Pretty indeed, but with some limitions. Undoing blockfunction for example will be as good as impossible. But undoing changes on single events will be possible.
  

Latok wrote

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And about OPL4 soundbanks. You can load them in a different menu from the MIDI Soundbanks.....We should not forget that part of Meridian also still works. Of course, it does!! Including pitchbending and modulation already.... So I guess one can load an OPL4 soundbank and a MIDI soundbank at the same time? Both the soundmodule and the OPL4 are receiving data while playing a song? But if I load a for example MT32 MIDI Soundbank in bank1, it will overwrite the OPL4 GM soundbank which is also in bank 1? How will that work out? A bit confused now.....

It is a bit confusing, but the banks in the MIDI driver and the banks in the Opl4 soundbank work apart from each other. That means, when loading another MIDI driver, the Opl4 soundbank remains unharmed and vice versa.

Michiel - thanks for your quick reply and swift actions. Can't wait to work with the next release!

Indeed, I SO can't wait for when I can unpack my turboR and give it a place in my new home and try out Meridian!!

Michiel, this is great news. But please don't forget the pitchbending and modulation as well, ok?

And erhm....There is another old feature which I really would like to see implemented again. If there is a channelchange, the instrument name on the left should change with it. I'd like to see on the screen which instrument I'm hearing.....

I think Michiel can only do six things at a time, Latok... maybe we should be a tad more patient