Vision Software - Recover Old Compositions I Need Help!

[Meadowbrook]

Hello,

I am so happy to find this forum!  I am new to forums, please forgive me if I don't follow proper etiquette. 

I wrote a great deal of music using Vision and then stopped writing for years, and in the meantime everything changed.  I have tried to recover the pieces, and have been only partially successful.  I have the original files and many of the installation disks.  Several years ago I found a kind soul in Mpls. who had an old computer, but we couldn't get the right version to open with my installation disks.  I think because I had the install on a disk, I thought I would never again need the floppies, and I threw them out, years ago. His computer would not load the latest version, just the previous that needed the floppies. 

I think the best thing to do would be to acquire an old computer and open them up here - not to play them with all my old hardware orchestral synths, but at least to see the original piano roll notes.  That would be an enormous help.  I got the files transferred to SMF by a studio in LA, but they are a bit scrambled, and I can't quite tell what is what. 

I am 68, and feel that my compositions were of some value, and in any case I loved them and want to recover them.  Can anyone help? 

Thank you so much for reading through this,

David

[smilesdavis]

the old floppy disaster. next step people took was throwing away the mac when the hdd died.

glad you joined and i hope you find the answers you are looking for

try sheepshaver, its an emulator, and is perfect for recovering software only files from old projects

https://sheepshaver.cebix.net/

[chokobo]

Hi David,

Last year I was able to get out some old machines, and do some migration much like you are suggesting. I've kept most my machines. I have them going back to 1984. But I didn't have access to all of them, or some of them need repairs.

Getting an old machine to help in this effort is a good idea, but which one to get will depend on your floppies. If you have 400k floppies you'll need a 68K Mac of some sort. If you have 800k floppies then it is much easier. Most machines that will run OS9 can read 800k floppies.

It's fine that you no longer have install disks. All of the soft you need is on this site, or others. You can download the soft, and install it on your machine, with no copy protection.

The problem with SMF files is that if you didn't properly prep your Vision files you are going to lose data that may be important (as you've seen). Things like track names, tracks that were set to the same midi channel will get merged. Plenty of things to mess you up.

Vision will run fine in SheepShaver. I used SheepShaver running on my G5 to make some of this easier to do, but I also set up a number of older OS machines. The newest of which is a G4 with OS9, and it could not read the 400k floppies, so I needed an 68K machine with OS7 (I forget which version, but it wasn't the most recent). So if you can get your files to a newer machine then you can run Vision in SheepShaver.

Then move things around in Vision so that when you save things out to SMF files they make sense.

This is a tedious process, but it works.

[robespierre]

The newest of which is a G4 with OS9, and it could not read the 400k floppies, so I needed an 68K machine with OS7 (I forget which version, but it wasn't the most recent).

Just a note, but no factory G4 Mac has a built-in floppy disk drive. Only built-in floppy drives are capable of reading 800KB Mac disks with Apple's proprietary GCR encoding. USB floppy drives cannot read them.

The last machines with built-in floppy drives were the "Gossamer" Power Mac G3 and the "Wallstreet/PDQ" Powerbook G3, both from 1998.

400KB floppy disks are like 800KB disks only written on one side. These are not common since they have been obsolete since January 1986. Vision wasn't released until 1989.

[smilesdavis]

thats why you get yourself a SmartDisk

[Meadowbrook]

Dear smilesdavis, robispierre, and chokobo, thank you so very much for your replies!  New to forums I didn't know there was no notification of relies without coming back to the site.  Again not sure of etiquette, but I will answer best as I can your helpful questions:

robispeirre - I haven't the floppies unfortunately.  I found a site that says that you can download it from without need of an install disk or dcode - but when I try to open that on the G4 it says "there is no default application specified to open..."  is there some application I can acquire? 

chokobo - thank you!  I don't have the floppies.  Can you tell me where please how to find the software on this site?  When I search for it, I found one message that said "download here" but it didn't work.  But I don't understand - must I then also have Sheepshaver?  Shouldn't it just run on a OS9 Mac?  I want to export SMF to put into Cubase on another computer;  and then be able to look at the old files in Studio Vision to check instruments, see what was inadvertently combined, check notes, etc. 

This is very important to me.  So wonderful to have your help here! 

[Meadowbrook]

Hello All,

Well, slight advance!  I got "Studio vision 4.0" off the forum (if I remember right) and got it transferred it to a stick which I used to get it on to my G5 - I am afraid to connect the G4 to the internet, and will avoid that if possible.  It opens, I see the files, I tried just installing OMS and it did that after a few tires.  But SV, it simply will not install it.  Once it said that "finder' should be quit.  I quit and restarted it.  It says different things, I have tried everything I can think of - am down to custom, simple install - and am getting a popup:  "The app SV Pro/OMS could not be quit.  Please quit the app and try again." 

What is going wrong here? 

[GaryN]

OK… There are a few things here.
#1.   Don't be afraid to connect your G4 to the net. There are no bogeymen waiting for you out there…
#1a. What model G4 do you have? This is important.
#2.   Whichever model it is, it should be running OS 9.2.2
#3.   Your version of OMS should be 2.3.8 If not, dump it and I have attached 2.3.8 below.
#4.   Download StudioVisionPro 4.5.1 from the Forum here: http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,2527.0.html - either to the stick with the G5 as before or directly to the G4. If 4.5.1 is what you already have, great - keep it.
#5.   Read carefully: There is no StudioVisionPro (SVP) 4.5.1 Installer. You have to make the necessary folders and put the components where they belong. This is not complicated, I have attached the "Vision DSP Quickstart" guide. It is identical the the SVP one. Anywhere it says "DSP" think SVP. The important part is to get the OMS stuff in the right places first but the OMS installer should take care of that.
#6.   Now, Look at the SVP files and place them where the chart indicates. Create submaster / "header" folders as needed. Ignore those items on the chart you do not have.

* When you're done, you should be able to double-click the SVP app and have it launch. It will ask for a file to open or create a new one. You should be able to open one of your old files then. Clearly, you want to use the ones before they were converted to SMFs.

** None of the above mentions a MIDI interface or synths etc. since you haven't indicated anything about them. There will be some points where either OMS or SVP asks for Synth names, channels, etc. OMS will try to make a "Studio Setup". When you open an old file with SVP, you'll get a big notice that your current setup doesn't match the one you had back then. (Obviously, since there IS NO setup currently) You'll have to cancel your way through those and/or select "use old setup" or such to try to get SVP to list the old names as much as it can with what info it has.

One way or another, you should be able to get to where you want to go and see the piano roll and such. When you get to this point, we'll talk about exporting SMF's.