From: Gregory J. Wayman (gwayman_at_mac.com)
Date: Mon Jan 12 2004 - 11:06:54 PST
Here is a response from Glen Raphael author of NewtPaint and fellow SNUG
member.
Matt Spolin is not LandWare. LandWare is a mainly a guy named (not
coincidentally) Ken Landau. There's a good interview and pictures of
the core LandWare people here:
http://www.brighthand.com/article/LandWare_Interview_2001
LandWare does in-house development and also publishes software for
others. Ken bought the rights to sell MusicPad but it was not a very
successful product. There were many returns - people were disappointed
with it - so they stopped selling it.. After LandWare published my
program NewtPaint, I worked for Ken for a while as a contractor and one
of the tasks I worked on was fixing up MusicPad 1.0 to make a new
MusicPad 2.0 product to run on the eMate. I was almost finished when
Apple killed the Newton, so MusicPad 2.0 was never released.
The chief problem with MusicPad 1.0 was the sound quality. There was
only one instrument, it didn't sound very good, and the scaling
algorithm that changed the note pitch also changed the note duration so
the tempo of the resulting song was highly uneven. For 2.0, I made my
own decent piano and guitar samples, fixed the duration bug and
improved the graphics while leaving the underlying structure
essentially intact. It was still a single-voice program. Didn't do
MIDI, didn't do polyphony. And no drum sounds.
Glen Raphael
raphael_at_pobox.com
> From: DJ Vollkasko <DJ_Vollkasko_at_gmx.net>
> Date: Sun Jan 11, 2004 10:02:18 AM US/Pacific
> To: newtontalk_at_newtontalk.net
> Subject: [NTLK] Matt Spolin = Landware?, MusicPad questions (was Where
> can I find MusicPad for MP 120?)
> Reply-To: newtontalk_at_newtontalk.net
>
> It has been brought to my attention that the creator of MusicPad is
the
> very same elusive person who already brought us the extremely cool
> ScratchPad 2.0, Matt Spolin. And according to the Readme he wanted to
> implement MIDI, but apparently never did (or it never hit the market).
> I wonder if Matt could be reached through Landware. Any of the old
> hands - was he working for Landware, was he Mr. Landware, or does it
> appear
> as if LW just handled distro for him? I'd still like to get in touch
> with
> him regarding his audio apps.
>
> Say, MusicPad - is there any way to change instruments? If one
> could
> make it play percussive stuff, we'd at long last have a DrumPad that
> could
> be nicely programmed and store rhythm patterns (e.g. MusicPad meets
> Francis
> Preve's NR404). THAT would be seriously something that'd get me into
> buying
> MP130s until one survives my attempts to implant a line-out to it! ;=}
>
> That plus programmable live buttons for effects like in Scratchpad,
> and as
> extra a good, cool Midi/.kar-player. Boy, would that be great!
>
> Cheers,
>
> DJV.
>
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