Project jumbled

Project Jumbled was a multimedia engine (circa 1994/1995) for GNU compiled computers (tested on Linux). This interface linked a CDROM reader with audio compact disc loaded to a hardware MIDI sound module.

The implementation of Jumbled planned to give the world extremely "cheap" Compact Disc DJing. Not only with capacity to pitch cue but also the capacity to use the standard MIDI effects on the audio stream. The reason why this multimedia engine was "cheap" is that everything was implemented in hardware. The only use for the computer was in shifting data from devices to the MIDI module. Examples of data devices are the compact disc and the MIDI keyboard.

The standard MIDI keyboard when plugged to the Jumbled application would allow the musician to play chords of their compact discs, although without time scale modification and pitchscale modification, this would be a dissonant affect after a few seconds.

Jumbled acquired its name because it was slow at shifting data from the compact disc to the MIDI module. The sound was so slow, it would loop twice and a bit before the MIDI RAM buffer would re-load and thus the song would move on. A very interesting effect, however not much good for music which was not tuned to Jumbled's RAM load frequency.

Jumbled was ahead of its time. A regular 486 computer was not capable of streaming CD quality audio fast enough to the sound MIDI device. It was an ISA bus Soundblaster AWE 32 MIDI sound module.

Project jumbled was a precursor to Project dynamic which was a successful implementation of cheap pitch cueing. Unfortunately it lacked hardware audio effects such as low frequency oscillators, and resonant filters.