Voyetra Sequencer Plus GOLD v4.11 (Aug 1993) for DOS

[chrisNova777]

special thanks to Javier Zubizarreta of argentina for helping to locate this v4.11 final version of SPG + its related manual + materials

http://www.mrspring.info/vbulletin/showthread.php?3174-Voyetra-Sequencer-amp-Hardware-PC-DOS-midi-Setup

for info on v3.0 click here
for the post on v4.10 click here
for the post on the v24s/v24sm interface click here

Final version of Sequencer Plus GOLD v4.11 - Installer allows for selection and installation of a secondary midi interface (for more midi OUTPUTS) devices included in the "mpu compatibles" category includes ALL MPU-401 compatibles - "intelligent" + non-"intelligent" midi devices for the XT/AT PC , as well as sound blaster cards + sb compatibles (basically all ISA soundcards, aswell as built in motherboard MIDI/joystick ports) u simply run your primary vapi driver first and then addon the sapimpu.com modules as needed also issuing a /addr:XXX indicating the base address.. also making sure that u dont have IRQ conflicts but u dont have to tell the sapimpu.com its irq... just the base address, so i have a soundblaster 16 set up at base address 300 (which i configured that way with its PNP CTCU + CTCM utility) so i just type sapimpu.com /addr:300 and that loads the midiport to be usable *as an OUTPUT* for use with voyetra SPG... you can only use INPUTS from your primary VAPI interface.. whatever device it may be..
Thanks to Paul D.

[chrisNova777]

Reference Guide

[chrisNova777]

VOYETRA SIDEMAN DTX 1988
https://www.google.ca/search?q=VOYETRA+SIDEMAN+DTX&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=LfsMWN7mDqWc0gLjnr2IAw

Voyetra SIDEMAN D50
https://www.google.ca/search?q=voyetra+sideman+d50&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=e_sMWKLOFuuC0wLrxr_wDw

[inspector77]

I´m installed this software in an old pentium 133 mhz with 32mg of ram with a sound blaster gold and works perfect!
The computer is in sync with roland vs880 via MTC for audio recording, this software is amazing, very fast and stable.
Thanks for share!!!

[inspector77]

How to run Voyetra sequence Gold in linux:

1- Install Ubuntu Studio
2- Install Dosemu Package - "sudo Apt-get install dosemu"
3- Load virmidi (virtual midi modules) - "sudo modprobe snd-virmidi"
4- Make a symlink of you virtual midi modules to dosemu midi out - "sudo ln -s /dev/snd/midiC2D0  ~/.dosemu/run/dosemu-midi"
5- Make a symlink from another virtual midi to dosemu midi in - "sudo ln -s /dev/snd/midiC2D1
~/.dosemu/run/dosemu-midi_in"
6- Launch Dosemu and install Voyetra Seq Gold - after install close DosEmu
7- Launch Qjackctl
7- Launch Qsynth
9- In Qjackctl connect the "virtual Raw midi 2-0" to Fluid Synth - Now we have sound out
10- In Qjackctl connect  the "virtual Raw midi 2-1" to your midi in hardware (i have and usb midi dongle) - Now we have midi in
11- Launch Dosemu - cd to voyetra directory  - load vapimpu driver - launch voyetra sequencer
12- press contrl-alt-f to go full screen

I tested recording, playing and sincronize with external hardware and all is working no lag or missing notes.
Metronome via pc speaker is the only thing than i can´t hear
My test machine is a intel Celeron 2.800mhz with 2g Ram.


Thanks to Dave Phillips

[chrisNova777]

thanks for that insightful post Inspector77!! congrats on getting it working with linux.. so the midi output from the soundblaster card is working great under linux?? thats interesting..



do u mean that u are using this Sound Blaster ? the ISA sound blaster64 gold?
i had one it was my prized possession in 1997. somehow i let someone take it from my old computer when i had a motherboard fry on me and i had bought a new motherboard that had no ISA slot, either pentium III or IV i forget.. tualatin?

[inspector77]

No, the Sound Blaster Gold is in an old pentium computer with isa slots and msdos 6.22 & win311
In this computer i use the synth of the sound Blaster Gold for audio output and is sync via MTC with a Roland  VS880, for audio capture.

The linux Machine is a more "modern" computer with integrated intel sound card, in this case you don´t need an isa audio card, you use a sofware synth for sound output,  and a midi usb dongle for sync MTC with other Roland vs840.

The benefits of use linux and dosemu emulation are :
Works with more modern computers (old computers start to be expensive)
Can use modern keyboards & mouse
Work with almost all sound cards
Usb ports!
Less noise & hiss in audio out for the new components of the most modern computers
you can attach diferent softsynths and effects to the audio output

http://libremusicproduction.com/articles/friday-interview-7-dave-phillips

http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000057

[ColecoBrothers]

and now SPG works on a 35$ raspberry pi, really.

[chrisNova777]

wow thats really cool coleco brothers..
do they have a raspberry pi that does ATARI ST? for running CREATOR?

do u have any other videos that show how u got a raspberry pi to run DOS programs?
or info about that sort of thing? for those interested in pursuing

[Mixermap]

I have edited the manual scans into a PDF for convenience.

[chrisNova777]

thanks mixermap
wasnt there a way to change the color scheme ?

[Mixermap]

I am not sure what you mean It's black and white like the original scans...
If you mean the contrast and sharpness, my graphic design skills unfortunately are limited to cutting the pictures and making a PDF

[chrisNova777]

i meant the color scheme of the app - while its running
i vaguely remember being able to do this back in 1997 with my AWE64Gold sound card
that i had in my 486 Packard Bell + also in my Pentium II 450mhz machine
the earlier versions of sequencer plus werent in this blue color scheme
there must be a way to change the colors?
here u see someone using a black background:

[Mixermap]

I will be testing this with my "new" IBM PS1 desktop in the near future

[ultramars]

real cool gem !
i remember this sequencer was in the software bundle supplied with my sound blaster pro 2, but it wasn't the 4.11 gold version, so i couldn't sequence FM sounds with it, so i used the windows midi sequencer instead

Now, question: if we can make it work alongside fasttracker 2, is there any chance both programs would kindly & gently output both through the audio out of the same sound blaster card?
i guess if the FM synth has its own DAC, different that the ones used to convert audio samples in analog, that could work; otherwise if one of those two programs takes exclusive control of the audio out of the sound blaster, it would prevent the other one to use it at the same time   

[ultramars]

thanks mixermap
wasnt there a way to change the color scheme ?

here is a high res version of the manual, though i'm not sure if it's version 4.10 or 4.11:
http://www.vgmpf.com/Docs/Sequencer%20Plus%20Gold%20-%20Manual%20v4.pdf

i found it on this page: http://vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php/Sequencer_Plus_Gold

[chrisNova777]

i saw someone say that it's Shift-F6 to change the colors

[robbo007]

Is there any chance to get an "imageDisk" copy of the original disk? The copy can be done using the program WinImage. Thanks,

[chrisNova777]

lots more demos by midi madness guy here
https://www.youtube.com/@midisong

thanks to him to inspire me to collect all the info on this page

[milenkov]

Has anyone tinkered with 86Box emulator (https://86box.net) to run Voyetra SPG?

Unlike Dosemu, Dosemu2 and 8086tiny (and its forks) it runs on macOS (10.13 and newer) and Windows machines.

Unlike DOSBox and DOSBox-X it has support for MIDI in (https://86box.readthedocs.io/en/latest/settings/sound.html#midi-in-device).

Presumably it would be nice to use Apple Silicon Mac minis to run Voyetra SPG. MacBox (https://github.com/Moonif/MacBox) is of help.

[RandomTestSubject]

I have SPG running in 86Box on my Mac Mini M4, and it does quite well. For the tightest MIDI timing, make sure to select the small CPU frame option introduced in 5.x. There is also a MIDI input bug at the moment that can crash the input (but not the VM) but I have made the dev aware of it and they indicated a fix will be coming in version 6. You can work around this in the meantime by just using a very fast emulated CPU, I think mine is 400-ish MHz. Once the bug is fixed you should be able to use an emulated 386 or 486 at typical speeds. Also, if your emulated machine uses acpi, avoid using irq2/9 for your emulated mpu-401. Any other irq should be fine though. Oh, and you'll probably want to set your keyboard to PC mode in MacOS just to make life a little easier since SPG is largely keyboard driven. Once you account for these details it actually works very smoothly. The jitter is within 1ms plus or minus of the timing of SPG on real hardware, and the real hardware is within 1ms plus or minus of perfect.

Also, the latest version of 86Box has its own VM Manager now. Not sure if it is as feature-filled as MacBox, but it it works well enough for me. Let me know if you have any questions where running SPG in 86Box is concerned, happy to share what I know.