Miracle Piano Teaching System Software

The Miracle Piano Teaching System is computer software that you interact with through the included MIDI musical keyboard. It was released in 1990 by The Software Toolworks, Inc. The software includes a range of songs and progresses from beginner to intermediate, accessing you on your pitch and rhythm accuracy as received from the keyboard. Software - miracle piano teaching system. PianoHead, Diver: Deep Water Adventures + addon, ABC Baby Piano. A: The Piano Discovery System (PDS), reviewed in three different versions here on PEP, was developed by JumpMusic for Windows 3.1 (16-bit Windows) from the original Miracle Piano Teaching System, to which JumpMusic acquired the rights from The Software Toolworks. JumpMusic is long out of business, so neither the Miracle nor the Piano Discovery.

Piano Discovery System
Miracle Piano Teaching System Software
Miracle Piano Software

MIDI keyboard with wavetable sound & complex piano teaching software

This is a velocity sensitive MIDI keyboard with sample based sounds, that originally came with a sustain pedal (of foam rubber?) and a complex and versatile piano teaching software.

The initial retail price in 1990 was about 500$. Beside for PC (DOS or Windows 3.11) also software versions for Amiga and even for the

Nintendo NES and Sega Megadrive/ Genesis game consoles were released. (Despite the game consoles this is not just a toy keyboard but has a far higher sound quality than e.g. My Music Center

.) The hardware of this instrument was manufactured by Antex and the software by The Software Toolworks.

There is already plenty of info about this thing available on the internet and my specimen is missing the software package and pedal, thus I only write here a few words about the keyboard itself because it is not so well documented yet. Basically it is a normal velocity sensitive fullsize keyboard with MIDI in/ out and a sound bank with 128 built-in preset sounds (including various drum kits and effect sound sets), thus it also works well without the software package. The only main difference to an average modern MIDI keyboards is that it has no built-in rhythms, no pitch/ modulation wheels and that its 128 sound bank is not based on the General MIDI standard. The latter makes it particularly interesting because its sound bank this way contains a lot of all new and partly bizarre non- GM preset sounds.

main features:

49 velocity sensitive fullsize keys (non- weighted)
2 built-in speakers (stereo, but rather thin and hollow sounding)
polyphony 16 notes (only 8 notes with stereo preset sounds)
128 preset sounds (including 3 drum kits and 2 effect kits)
all functions selected through only 8 buttons
volume +/- buttons (10 steps) those also select other functions
6 function buttons {1= 'piano / melody 1', 2= 'vibraphone/ bass', 3= 'harpsichord/ melody 2', 4= 'elect piano/ percussion', 5= 'organ/ accompany', 6= 'synthesizer/ select'} with each a green indicator LED
9 default key split modes {classical, rock, jazz, blues, rap, latin, country, cathedral, new age} those assign each a set of 6 OBS preset sounds to the 6 buttons
'library select' mode to select preset sounds by number (function button 6= sound '0', 1= 'step up', 2= 'step down', 3= '10 steps up', 4= '10 steps down')
10 step green LED indicator bar (for mode and volume)
wavetable sound generator: all sounds based on medium and high resolution samples with partly audible zipper noise. The decay envelopes of percussive sounds (like piano) stop too soon and thus sound unrealistic.
no battery compartment
jacks for AC- adapter, headphones, line out, foot pedal, MIDI in/ out and special serial port

Beside MIDI jacks there is also a special serial 'Miracle port' connector, that was apparently used for PC serial port connection and the game console versions. Interesting is that this instrument was still made in USA and not in China like most modern keyboards.

notes:

Despite the quite noble designed and slightly oversized case of this keyboard on the first look appears like a robust and professional stage instrument, many parts of it are much wackier than they appear. E.g. the control panel writing is on a loose plastic foil overlay that is only held by short flaps at its ends (there seem to exist different versions of this overlay), and the 2 protruding pointed pins of the tiny sustain pedal jack may bend or crack off easily and may react sensitive on static electricity, which is especially delicate because they are placed very close to the tiny metal power switch lever. Also the speakers are much smaller than the size of their plastic grills suggest; they are mounted in short, forward pointing funnels and have a way too hard diaphragm tension, which prevents reasonable bass response and makes the thing sound a little dull and hollow. The volume can not be set really low, which is most noticeable in sounds without velocity sensitivity. The power amplifier makes noticeable static noise with constant volume.

The speakers are much smaller than their grills. (This photo was digitally processed to show it clearer.)

The operation of the Miracle Piano is at least without the software a little awkward because the thing has no display and you have to count button presses to select a preset sound. The modes (default key splits and 'library select') are selected by holding down the 6th button ('select') and stepping through the modes with the volume +/- buttons. A flashing LED in the row indicates the actual mode while a bar of lit LEDs indicates the volume setting. In the default key split modes the keyboard is split always in the middle and the sounds are selected by pressing 2 OBS buttons together (the press order determines which sound goes left and which right).

The sounds are based on samples of medium to quite high resolution. If you expect them to sound static and rather cold than you are completely right, because this thing fulfils all the well known prejudices against sample based sound bank instruments. The Miracle Piano can not do well warm and analogue timbres despite one preset sound (a lead synth with chorus) even has the naughty name 'Moog'. But at least some bright brass synth timbres resemble classic analogue sounds. The keyboard velocity only changes the volume of the preset sounds but never modifies the timbre in any way (despite various sounds seem to consist of 2 layered samples) and also the note duration does not change the timbre, which makes the sound quite static. The keyboard velocity behaves exponential, which makes it difficult to play medium loud notes on sustaining sounds because soft and medium strong key presses play rather quiet while slightly harder presses already rise the volume over- proportionally loud. (An acoustic piano behaves more linear.) Another annoying flaw is that the envelope of decaying sounds (like pianos or guitar) stops too soon instead of slowly fading silent. The envelopes also have a little zipper noise. Some sounds (e.g. ensemble sounds like 'horns', 'trumpets', 'thrombones') contain a stereo chorus effect that halves the polyphony; others include a mono chorus. The chorus usually sounds a little gritty because it apparently switches the timbre (using a filter??, or phasing??) stepwise with about 4Hz (similarly like ensembles sounds on e.g. Fujitone 6A or Yamaha PSS-390). The acoustic pianos sound quite realistic; they seems to be a multi sample with 4 split points while most other sounds have none. Especially brass and bowed string timbres are realistic, but with such sustaining sounds the velocity sensitive keyboard is rather confusing because the final volume of louder growing timbres is badly controllable since the keyboard is not pressure sensitive and thus the volume of a long note can not be changed without re- playing the note because the keyboard only senses the pressure at the beginning of a note. Only a few organ and harpsichord presets have velocity disabled. The 3 human voices (called 'Vox' 1..3) have a quite low resolution and the gritty chorus effect. Otherwise there is an 'organ' timbre which sounds much like a higher resolution 'ah' voice. The sitar is mislabelled(?) 'Syntar'. The 'Log Drums' resembles rather a harp (at least with high notes) and the 'Steel Drums' sounds nicely unrealistic (gong- like?) with a bassy bass range. Various instrument sounds exist in versions with and without sustain.

But the most interesting part of the sound bank are not the natural instrument samples (those you find nowadays on any General MIDI sound source) but the lots of bizarre effect sounds. E.g. there are 3 drum kits (high resolution samples; each sample is repeated on a few adjacent keys with different pitch) and 2 effect kits those include a lot of weird tekkno and hiphop noises like record scratches, thunder, car skidding and burp- like stuff. Also great are the 15 'Synth Pad' sounds although many of them have a percussive decay envelope (like a piano) and thus genuinely are rather lead voice than pad sounds. They include typical bright digital synth timbres and many of them have a bizarre buzzy purring bass range that resembles the sound of a ruler rattling against a desktop rim. Likely their waveforms are simply intentionally 'wrongly' looped versions of the instrument samples; some sound woody while others rather resemble a looped lion roar sample or the like. But some of these sounds contain a long release phase that takes much polyphony and causes annoying random popping glitches during polyphonic play; apparently such sounds tend to overload the instrument's CPU or make it run out of polyphony, possibly also because the purring and chorus may be generated by a realtime algorithm that draws additional CPU load. Some 'Synth Pad' sounds ring with a switched stereo panning effect. Another bizarre timbre is 'Frogs/ Ducks', which is a thin and very dry chirping duck squawk that was possibly inspired by the 'frog' sound of early Casio Consonant Vowel synthesis instruments (also see Casio MT-60 and CT-410V) although this one is definitely a sample (it gets shorter at higher octaves). Also many of the synth sounds (e.g. synth brass stuff) sound and behave very much like historical Consonant Vowel timbres and thus are likely made like these from 2 static waveforms with independent volume envelopes. Generally various timbres somewhat remind to the wavetable based Casio SA series keyboards although the latter do far more complex algorithmic tricks in their preset sound while the Miracle Piano employs only some switched ringing, chorus and panning effects.

More info about this instrument can be found on the internet. Even the original manual can be downloaded somewhere.

Wanted: I am searching for the historical piano teaching software (PC Windows or Amiga version) that belongs to the instrument, because without it the thing is only 1/3 the fun. I already downloaded the ROM dumps of the NES and Megadrive/ Genesis cartridge versions, but since game console emulators support no MIDI connection, they don't work with the keyboard anyway. (I now got a copy of the DOS software but haven't tried it yet.)

removal of these screws voids warranty...

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Products /
FIX8X14 - 8x14 font fixer

Description

On the recommendation of the VESA committee many producers of graphics cards removed the 8x14 font from their graphics cards BIOS' to gain more space to implement the latest VBE functions. But there is still some software that relies an that font. To restore such a font, these companies developed several 'Terminate & Stay Resident' utilities.

FIX8X14 is the first 8x14 font-fixing implementation as a true device driver, that can be loaded BEFORE ALL other DOS programs which perhaps use an 8x14 font. In addition to the device driver we developed a TSR to achieve maximum customer satisfaction.

To test whether your computer system requires FIX8X14 or not, we developed DIAG8X14. It analyzes your computer with its own algorithm and allows visual inspection too.

The following DOS software has been tested to require an 8x14 font fixer and is known to work with FIX8X14:

Company	Product	Works with ...
Borland	Quattro Pro 4	COM/SYS
CMAR Software	PIDSIM 2.x	COM/SYS
Maxis Software	SimCity 1.02	COM/SYS
Nu-Mega Technologies	Soft-ICE 2.80	SYS
Number One Systems	Easy-PC	COM/SYS
Soleau Software	Alphaman 1.1	COM/SYS
Soleau Software	Blind Wars 1.1	COM/SYS
Soleau Software	Bolo Adventures I 3.0	COM/SYS
Soleau Software	Bolo Adventures III 1.0	COM/SYS
Soleau Software	Crusher 3.2	COM/SYS
Soleau Software	Isle Wars 3.1	COM/SYS
Soleau Software	Numlo 1.0	COM/SYS
Soleau Software	Plix 1.0	COM/SYS
Soleau Software	Robix 1.1	COM/SYS
Soleau Software	Sea Run 1.0	COM/SYS
Soleau Software	Wordle 1.2	COM/SYS
Soleau Software	Wordmax 1.1	COM/SYS
The Software Toolworks	Miracle Piano Teaching System	COM/SYS

The following graphics cards have been tested to require an 8x14 font fixer and are known to work with FIX8X14:

ATI XPERT@WORK 98, ATI XPERT 2000, ATI XPERT 2000 PRO, ELSA ERAZOR II, ELSA VICTORY Erazor/LT, Matrox MGA Millennium G100, Matrox MGA Millennium G200, Matrox MGA Millennium G400, Matrox MGA Millennium G450, Trident Cyber 9397 chipset

Modern graphics cards that support an 8x14 font are the Voodoo (2k/3k/4k/5k) series from 3dfx Interactive and probably all cards/chipsets that have an 48K bytes BIOS, e.g., Creative 3D Blaster GeForce2 MX, SiS 630 chipset, Trident/ALi CyberBLADE Aladdin i1 chipset, ...

For your information here is an excerpt from 'VESA BIOS EXTENSION (VBE) Core Functions Standard Version: 3.0 Date: September 16, 1998':

...

Removal of Unused VGA Fonts

VESA strongly recommends that removal of the 8x14 VGA font become a standard way of freeing up space for VBE 3.0 implementations. The removal of this font leaves 3.5K bytes of ROM space for new functions, and is probably the least painful way to free up such a large amount of space while preserving as much backwards compatibility as possible. The 8x14 font is normally used for VGA Modes 0, 3 and Mode 10h, which are 350-line or EGA compatible modes. When those are selected the 8x16 font may be chopped and used instead. When chopping a 16 point font to replace the 14 point, there are several characters (ones with descenders) that should be special cased.

Some applications which use the 8x14 font obtain a pointer to the font table through the standard VGA functions and then use this table directly. In such cases, no workaround using the 8x16 font is possible and a TSR with the 8x14 font is unavoidable. Some OEMs may find this situation unacceptable because of the potential for an inexperienced user to encounter 'garbage' on the screen if the TSR is not present. However, OEMs may also find eventually that demand for VBE 3.0 services is great enough to justify the inconvenience associated with an 8x14 font TSR. To date, no compatibility problems are known to be caused by the use of such a TSR. VESA will make available a TSR that replaces the 8x14 font, please contact VESA for more information.

...

Screenshots

Screenshot #1: Maxis SimCity 1.02 on a system without an 8x14 font.

Screenshot #2: Maxis SimCity 1.02 with FIX8X14 loaded.

System requirements

Intel i80286 microprocessor (or compatibles)
IBM VGA graphics card (or compatibles)
Digital Research DR DOS 5.0, IBM PC DOS 3.30, Microsoft MS-DOS 3.30 (any other DOS compatible operating system should work too)

Version history

06-APR-2002

added product reference to Borland Quattro Pro 4 and reference to the Trident Cyber 9397 chipset
reduced DIAG8X14's executable by ~40 bytes

24-NOV-2001

using SPHiNX C-- compiler 0.237 reduced size of DIAG8X14 executable

20-NOV-2001

reduced device driver size on disk again

28-OCT-2001

Piano Discovery System

reduced disk & memory footprint of device driver

21-SEP-2001

removed a bug (introduced on September 19, 2001) in the device driver that prevented loading the driver on Digital Research DR DOS 5.0 (and lower), and the FreeDOS kernel (all versions)
slightly reduced device driver's size on disk