DATA FILER
2. MAIN CHARACTERISTICS
99
2.1 THE GENIUS’S STRUCTURE
The Genius is a MIDI Data Filer, meaning a device capable of reading MIDI files and playing
them back in audio format thanks to its own internal sound generator.
For a clearer idea of how it works, we can divide the Genius into two sections: a file
management section, which from now on we will call the
Data Player
, and a generation system,
called the
Sound Generator
.
The
Data Player
section reads the data saved on the floppy disk or in the internal flash memory
and sends them to the
Sound Generator
section or to the [MIDI OUT] port. As well as this, this
section manages all the device’s internal programming, including the functions for management
of the songs, of the sequences of songs contained on the floppy disk or in the internal memory,
and all the functions for editing the songs themselves, such as their deletion, memorisation
and modification.
The
Sound Generator
section, on the other hand, converts the data received from the
Data
Player
section into audio signals, and thus into music, bearing in mind the timbre and dynamic
of every single note. This section is able to reproduce 353 sounds and 17 Drum Kits, and is
poly-timbric on 16 parts (16 different timbres can be played simultaneously) each distributed
on one track, meaning one MIDI channel. The maximum polyphony (the number of notes
which can be played simultaneously) is 32. What’s more, the Sound Generator has a
multieffects unit containing ambient effects (reverb and echo) and modulation effects (chorus
and flanger).
Another important feature of the Genius is that it has an internal memory which at the time of
purchase offers memorisation capacity from 8 MByte to 32 MByte. This allows you to save
the songs used most often and play them back by just recalling them from this internal memory
section, without having to load a floppy disk containing the songs required every time.
Another advantage of the flash memory is quicker loading of the songs being performed than
with a floppy disk driver.
2.2 DATA FORMAT
The Genius floppy disk driver is able to take 3.5” floppy disks in DD (720 KByte) and HD
(1.44 MByte) formats, formatted in accordance with the MS-DOS
standard. If the files
contained in these two sections are to be interpreted by the instrument during reading, they
must comply with the MIDI file (*.MID) standard in formats 0 and 1. During recording of
MIDI data from an external source, the result will be saved in the form of MIDI standard file in
format 0.
In order to be interpreted correctly by the instrument, MIDI files must belong to the GENERAL
MIDI standard.
