Klarinet Archive - Posting 000180.txt from 2003/12

From: Oliver Seely <oseely@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] Pitch on computer play
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 17:44:32 -0500

It's interesting to read of the problems experienced by people with sound
cards. There do seem to be bizarre bugs which pop out all too frequently.

One which still occurs is something called the "stack problem." I guess
that a stack is an area of short-term "first in-last out"
memory. Sometimes it gets overloaded and programs stop working. MIDI
playback programs seem to be particularly vulnerable. Microsoft was
supposed to have fixed it after Windows 95, then 98, then 2000, then ME. I
haven't had it happen to me yet with my XP laptop. A second problem is
reverberation. Under certain circumstances a MIDI file will begin to feed
back on itself, finally resulting in a steady pipe organ sound. The only
solution on my Windows 95 computer was to shut down and do a cold boot. A
third problem which I haven't observed in several years was that a saved
MIDI file would be written with a superimposed half-step dissonance which
couldn't be removed. I never did figure out a solution to that problem,
nor did our MIDI guru in the Department of Music here. I haven't
experienced the "out of tune" sound board, but there are enough other
things which can go wrong to make me think I'd consider it to be my fault,
not that of the board.

Oliver

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