home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Music Ace
/
Music Ace.iso
/
mac
/
Music Ace Read Me
< prev
Wrap
Text File
|
1997-02-28
|
11KB
|
218 lines
CONTENTS
* VIEWING THE MACINTOSH MENU BAR ON A 640 BY 480 SCREEN
* RUNNING MUSIC ACE ON A 5 MEGABYTE MACINTOSH
* QUICKTIME¬ MUSICAL INSTUMENTS
* MIDI DRIVER OR MIDI MANAGER CONFLICT
* INSTALLING MIDI MANAGER MANUALLY
* MIDI INPUT
* IF MUSIC ACE IS UNSTABLE AND/OR FREEZES OR DISPLAYS STRANGE ERROR MESSAGES
* IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS INSTALLING QUICKTIME¬
* UNINSTALLING MUSIC ACE
* TECHNICAL SUPPORT
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIEWING THE MACINTOSH MENU BAR ON A 640 BY 480 SCREEN
Pressing the space bar will toggle display of the Macintosh menu bar. When the menu bar
is displayed, Music Ace will suspend operation. It will resume when the menu bar is
removed with another press of the space bar.
RUNNING MUSIC ACE ON A 5 MEGABYTE MACINTOSH
If your computer has only 5 megabytes of physical memory (RAM), Music Ace will have
barely enough memory to run. Music Ace requires about 2.5 megabytes for itself, and
the Macintosh operating system uses approximately 2.5 megabytes also, give or take,
depending on how many extensions you have enabled.
You may find that you need to enable Virtual Memory (under the Memory control panel)
in order to run Music Ace on a 5 megabyte computer. When virtual memory is enabled,
your Macintosh will frequently swap parts of the Music Ace program betweeen your
hard drive and RAM. This will slow Music Ace, possibly a great deal. If there is too
much swapping, digitized sound will break up and Music Ace will come to an almost
complete stand-still.
If there is only a small amount of swapping, Music Ace will probably run fine. To
minimize swapping, turn off some of the extensions using the Extensions Manager
control panel. Make sure you leave the QuickTime, Apple CD-ROM, and Sound Manager
extensions enabled. If you use a MIDI keyboard, the MIDI Manager must also be
enabled. If you want to print, leave the printer extension enabled. The Extensions
Manager allows you to save configurations. You might want to save one for Music Ace.
You will need to restart your Macintosh for the changes made in the Extensions Manager to
have effect.
If there is only a small amount of swapping, Music Ace will probably run fine. To
minimize swapping, turn off some of the extensions using the Extensions Manager
control panel. Make sure you leave the QuickTime, Apple CD-ROM, and Sound Manager
extensions enabled. If you use a MIDI keyboard, the MIDI Manager must also be
enabled. If you want to print, leave the printer extension enabled. The Extensions
Manager allows you to save configurations. You might want to save one for MDP. You will
need to restart your Macintosh for the changes made in the Extensions Manager to
have effect.
QUICKTIME¬ MUSICAL INSTUMENTS
Music Ace uses Apple's Quicktime¬ to generate musical notes. By default, Quicktime
generates musical notes internally using your Macintosh's CPU and plays them using your
built-in speaker. If you have a General MIDI keyboard connected to your Macintosh's modem
port via MIDI cables, Quicktime can play notes on that keyboard instead. You can select
which method QuickTime¬ will use via the 'QuickTime¬ Settings' control panel.
Selecting the Apple logo in the upper-left corner of your screen will reveal a menu which
includes 'Control Panels'. Selecting 'Control Panels' will reveal your system's control panels
including 'QuickTime¬ Settings'. In QuickTime settings, select 'Music' in the top of the
dialog box. The checkboxes on this dialog box will let you select how music will be played.
A small QuickTime¬ music application in the 'Mac Files' folder called 'QTMusic Sample
Keyboards' may be helpful in testing whether you have QuickTime configured properly.
MIDI DRIVER OR MIDI MANAGER CONFLICT
If you have already been using a MIDI keyboard before installing Music Ace, you might
already have the MIDI driver or extension installed. If your previous driver or extension
have names other than 'Apple MIDI Driver' or 'MIDI Manager', the Music Ace installation
program will not detect them. It will install its version of 'Apple MIDI Driver' in
your System Folder and its version of 'MIDI Manager' in your Extensions folder. These
will conflict with your existing MIDI driver and/or MIDI manager. If you see that your
MIDI driver does not initialize properly during the boot process (if an error is indicated
on the extension icon at the bottom of your screen during boot), you may have such a conflict.
To solve the problem, look in you 'System Folder' folder on you main hard drive. Check
if there is another file with a name similar (but not the same) as 'Apple MIDI driver'.
Compare its date (set the View menu to 'by Name') to that of 'Apple MIDI driver'. Move
the older of the two out of the System Folder to a temporary location (perhaps your
desktop).
Next, open your Extensions folder (inside of System Folder). You will find MIDI Manager
there. Look for another midi manager with a similar name. Again, remove the older of
the two.
Restart your computer. Check if Music Ace runs properly and check if your other MIDI
programs run properly. If so, you can move the obsolete MIDI system files into your
trash can. If not, put them back in their original folders, restart, and try something else.
INSTALLING MIDI MANAGER MANUALLY
If you did not install the MIDI Manager or Apple MIDI Driver during Music Ace
installation, but have since changed your mind, you can copy them to your hard
drive yourself. On the Music Ace CD-ROM, they are located in the 'System Files'
folder which can be found in the 'Mac Files' folder. The file 'Apple MIDI Driver'
should be copied to your 'System Folder' on your main hard drive. The file
'MIDI Manager' should be copied to your 'Extensions' folder located in your
'System Folder'.
After copying these files, you will need to restart your computer in order for
them to become operational.
MIDI INPUT
Under the Options menu in Music Ace, there is an option called "Enable MIDI Input."
Initially this option is checked, meaning that MIDI is enabled. If you decide that
you do not wish to use a keyboard for MIDI input, then you can disable the MIDI input
by checking this option. If you leave the MIDI enabled but have some other hardware
connected via the modem port, Music Ace might interpret signals from that hardware as
MIDI input. These non-MIDI signals can cause several problems which might affect the
behavior of your computer.
If MIDI input refuses to work after enabling it through the Music Ace menu, you can
also enable it using a tool located in the 'Mac Files' folder called 'QTMA Configuration'.
This tool was downloaded from Apple's web site and duplicates some of the
functionality of the QuickTime Setting control panel. The only part of this tool
that you will find useful is the 'Default MIDI Input' selector. This control has two
settings: 'Off' and 'Modem'. Specify 'Modem' if you would like MIDI input through
your modem port enabled. If you do not use MIDI input, it is best to leave this
set to 'Off'.
This tool has bug which you can work around. The 'Default MIDI Input' always appears
to be set to 'Off' when the tool is started even if you previously saved the
configuration to be 'Modem'. If you desire to set this control to 'Modem', first
set it to 'Off', save the configuration (via the File menu), then set it to 'Modem'
and save it again. Likewise, if you desire to set it to 'Off', first set it to 'Modem',
save the configuration, then set it to 'Off' and save it again. The next time you run
the tool, ignore the initial contents of this control.
IF MUSIC ACE IS UNSTABLE AND/OR FREEZES OR DISPLAYS STRANGE ERROR MESSAGES
If Music Ace does not run reliably or does not start properly, one or more of your
system extensions may have a conflict with QuickTime¬ or QuickTime¬ Musical
Instruments. Using the Extensions Manager control panel, create a custom
Music Ace configuration with some of the extensions turned off. Make sure you
leave the QuickTime, Apple CD-ROM, and Sound Manager and MIDI Manager extensions
enabled.
You will need to restart your Macintosh for the changes made in the Extensions
Manager to have effect.
If you do not use a MIDI keyboard, you might want to disable MIDI input in the
Music Ace menu and in the QTMA Configuration tool. See 'MIDI Input' above.
Music Ace runs best if no other applications are running. Quit all other applications
before starting Music Ace.
IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS INSTALLING QUICKTIME¬
If Music Ace detects that you do not have QuickTime¬ installed on your system or
you have a version earlier than 2.5, Music Ace will call Apple's QuickTime version
2.5 installer. This installer will usually remove earlier versions of QuickTime from
your system with no problem.
On some computers, however, it does not remove the previous version properly. If you
get an error message while booting your Macintosh indicating that there is a problem with
QuickTime, or if the QuickTime icons that appear at the bottom of you screen during the
boot process indicate a problem, you will need to fix the problem manually.
To fix the problem, follow these steps:
1) Open your Extensions folder (Open your main hard drive folder, then open the 'System Folder'
folder, then open the 'Extensions' folder).
2) Using the menu bar, set the View to 'by Name'.
3) Locate the QuickTime files in this folder. Identify QuickTime files with EXACTLY duplicate
names. Look at the dates associated with these files. Drag the older of these duplicate
files to the trash. Keep only the newest version of each file (most recent date).
4) Restart you Macintosh.
UNINSTALLING MUSIC ACE
To uninstall Music Ace, you need to remove the Music Ace preference files and the Music
Ace data files that were copied to your hard drive. The preference files are located in your
Preferences folder inside the System Folder on your main hard drive. These all start
with "Music Ace...". They are:
Music Ace Prefs CD
Music Ace MIDI Keyb Data
Music Ace User Data
Drag these to the trash.
If, during Music Ace installation, you allowed the install program to copy some files
to your hard drive (for improved performance), you have a folder somewhere on your
hard drive that needs to be removed. Unless you specified a different name during
installation, it will be called 'Music Ace ─'. Locate this folder and drag it to your
trash icon.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
Over time, as our customers experience unexpected problems and we solve them,
we will post answers to some of these problems on our web page. If you have access
to the internet, please see our site located at www.harmonicvision.com.
If you are unable to solve a problem without our help, give us a call at 847/467-3250.
Be sure to have your registration number handy. It is best if you can be at your
computer when you call so we can work through the problem together.