This music was instrumented/ orchestrated on an iMac using MOTU Mosaic, and Quicktime for the sound playback. Consequently, Quicktime, either in standalone or as a plug-in for Netscape or Internet Explorer, should give you excellent results if you have a reasonably good sound card.

Of course, use of tiny or internal speakers will also damage your realization of this or any music, especially for low notes. Laptops are almost hopeless.

If, in spite of a QuickTime plug-in the music sounds a lot like an electronic beeper with varying pitch, or a mouth organ, and the percussion is strange and loud, you have a low-cost low-quality sound card. You might get a faint hint that a passage is flute-like or brass-like, but only a hint. Any strings sound like harmonicas, and not very good ones.

There are PC sound cards of varying quality. Very old or very cheap ones use 8-bit. Later ones used 16-bit or 32-bit. These are still pretty bad, although an improvement. The latest, with 64-bit or 128-bit are much, much better. You will find the difference dramatic. It even makes game sound effects sound better.

There is another problem. The Midi standards are somewhat loose on exact implementation of their 127 different sounds/instruments (plus percussion). The high quality cards (even Sound Blaster) will have excellent sound, but vary in loudness and attack (Soundblaster, at least with Microsoft Media Player, favors very sharp, sudden attacks). This can alter the planned balance (relative instrument dynamics) of an orchestral piece. The current Microsoft Media Player also has these poor characteristics, as well as harmonica-like strings.

If these things bother you, and you don't want to to get a good soundcard or use QuickTime for some reason, we recommend use of the Roland VSC (Virtual Sound Canvas) software, which bypasses your sound card processor, though you need a fairly fast mainboard processor (133+). Like QuickTime, it seems to match the setup under which this music was composed. VSC-55 free demo download

The music is original and was first composed for piano in 1999, using the MOTU (Mark of the Unicorn) Professional Composer and Performer software on a MacIIci, played back on an 88-key Roland A90 synthesizer, chosen for its excellent piano sound. All dynamics, ritards, etc. are written in. (The MOTU software is a kind of sophisticated word processor for music notes instead of words.)

The orchestration was performed using the MOTU Mosaic (composer) software, plus the MOTU Performer for adding instrument patches, on an iMac with QuickTime, which has reasonably good instrument sounds.

The music was written in 1999 and orchestrated in 2000.

1 Forest             5:45 min
      Sounds and mysteries of a strange land
2 Jurassimals             2:39
      Creepers, crawlers, runners, attackers
3 Waterhole             1:43
      Where many kinds of creatures gather
4 Seismosaurus             5:18
      The greatest, grandest land creatures
5 T.Rex             1.44
      Largest of the predators, the king
6 Pterodactyl             1:29
      The great soaring beast of the primal sky
7 Diametrodon             0:37
      The land crocodile with a cooling sail
8 Triceratops             1:17
      Three great fierce horns and a head shield
9 DinoBug             1:38
      An ancient insect with rhythm
10 Herded Plain             4:41
      Great herds of many kinds of dinosaurs
11 Stegosaurus             1:38
      The big plant-eater with a spiked tail
12 Archeopteryx             2:19
      The first feathered bird, but with teeth
13 Plesiosaurus             2:21
      The great, greaceful ocean creature
14 Velociraptor             1:22
      The quick and vicious consummate predator
15 Twilight             3:56
      Sunset, when some sleep and others wake
16 Mass Migration             8:04
      A long march in search of new pastures.