Anyone who has ideas, feel free to send me e-mail to tgree@relay.phys.ualberta.ca. My address is also printed at the bottom of this file and in the title screen and About... box of QuickTime MIDI Player.
This shareware version of QuickTime MIDI Player is fully functional, but please send in your registration fee of $15.00 (or whatever you think is appropriate) so that I may continue to write new programs and provide updates for this one. (Many thanks to the one (1) person who sent in their check in support of QuickTime MIDI Player!)
QuickTime MIDI Player is an application which will allow you to play MIDI data through your Macintosh speakers using QuickTime 2.0 and either the MIDI Manager or the Open Music System (OMS, available from Opcode or online at Opcode's home page: "http://www.rahul.net/opcode/index.html"). To use QuickTime MIDI Player, you will require both QuickTime 2.0 and either the Apple MIDI Manager or OMS. However, if you want to make any music with it, you will also require either a synthesizer hooked up to your Macintosh or a sequencer/notation program (such as "MusicShop", "Vision" or "Finale") which is Apple MIDI Manager or OMS compatible.
QuickTime MIDI Player allows you to set up the way that the instruments will sound on the Macintosh. Each different instrument is attached to a track. You can have up to 100 different tracks, although you probably won't be able to play that many instruments at once! (My IIci at home can only play four or five different instruments at once without any "glitches" in the sound.) You can assign the same instrument to more than one track. Each track also is associated to a certain MIDI channel. This is set in the "MIDI Ch." column in the track setup window. It's default channel is 1. To change it, click on the number and a popup menu will appear listing all the different MIDI channels. You can also decide whether or not you want the track to play incoming MIDI information. Just select the appropriate check box under the "Play" column. Also, it is possible that you will want the track to change instruments when it recieves program change messages. There is a check box under the column "Pr. Chg." which will allow you to change this setting. WARNING: Program change messages can slow down QuickTime MIDI Player! QuickTime takes a while to load the different instruments on to the track. If you are using this feature make sure you have a fast computer. (This is all from experience on my IIci. I don't know how fast it works on other computers... Any feedback would be appreciated!) Finally, if you added a track that you don't want anymore, just select it by clicking in it's track number column (under the "#" column) and choose "Delete Selected Track" from the "Tracks" menu, or press the delete key. (This works correctly now. :-) )
Using QuickTime MIDI Player is simple:
1. Run QuickTime MIDI Player.
2. Select "New" from the File Menu to create a new track setup file, or "Open" to use one of the setups included with QuickTime MIDI Player.
3. Add tracks using the "Add Track" command from the Track menu. QuickTime MIDI Player currently allows you to add up to 100 tracks, although it is unlikely that you will ever be able to play that many different instrument at once.
4. To change the MIDI Channel number, click on the number under the "MIDI Ch." column. A popup menu will appear allowing you to change the MIDI Channel. This allows you to select which MIDI channel that track is receiving on. Note that MIDI channels are different from track number - MIDI channels are the channels on which the data is sent. Tracks in QuickTime MIDI Player are basically just an instrument assigned to a MIDI channel.
5. To select a different instrument, click on the instrument name. The standard QuickTime Instrument Picker dialog will appear, allowing you to change the selected instrument.
6. To make a channel play incoming notes, hilite the check box under the "Play" column. (This is hilited by default when you add a track.)
7. To make a channel change instruments with MIDI Program Change messages, hilite the check box under the "Pr. Chg." column.
8. Once you have set up your track file, you can save it from the "File" menu. You are now ready to use QuickTime MIDI Player to play music.
If you are using the Apple MIDI Manager:
9. Open an application that can play MIDI and is Apple MIDI Manager compatible, such as "Vision" or "Finale". There are also shareware and demo sequencers available which can play MIDI songs using the Apple MIDI Manager. These are all compatible with QuickTime MIDI Player since they use the Apple MIDI Manager. Try one and see if you like it! If you just want to play music from a synthesizer attached to your Macintosh, you won't need a sequencer application.
10. Using the PatchBay application, join the application's output ports with the newly created QuickTime Input Port by drawing lines between the triangles. You can join as many "outputs" from your application to QuickTime as you want. (You can hook up more than one at the same time.) If you just want to play music from a synthesizer, hook up the QuickTime Input Port to the Apple MIDI Driver icon at the top left of the PatchBay screen.
Note: This QuickTime Input Port will only be shown in PatchBay if QuickTime MIDI Player is running! You must keep QuickTime MIDI Player running at all times that you want to hear music!!!!!
If you are using OMS:
9. Open an application that can play MIDI through OMS. (I think you will need to use the version of OMS which has the Inter-Application Communication driver installed in your MIDI Setup. It is available with OMS 2.0, but that hasn't been released yet. I don't know if it's available with older versions of OMS or not.) If you don't want to play music from a different program, but instead read data coming in from an external synthesizer, you don't have to run any other programs.
10. In QuickTime MIDI Player, go to the OMS menu and select "Choose Nodes to Receive From...". In the dialog box that appears, you can select different sources that QuickTime MIDI Player will play.
Finally:
11. In your MIDI application, or on some synthesizer attached to your Mac, play some music. You should now hear the sounds coming out of the Macintosh speaker! This is useful if you are entering music into programs, since it will give you auditory feedback to what you are doing while entering the music, and you can also listen to what it will sound like when you are done!
History:
Version 1.3
- Compiled it for 68020 code. (Don't have CodeWarrior yet, so no PPC native code, but it's coming soon!) If anyone wants a 68000 version, drop me a message and I will make it available. (I didn't see much reason because on a 68000 you won't get much out of QuickTime anyhow!)
- Fixed lots of little bugs. ("Save as..." saves in the right spot now... )
- "Delete Track" does what it's supposed to do (and a lot quicker too!).
- Added support for pitch bend and other controllers. If anyone has documentation which shows the format the QuickTime expects controller data to look like, please send it to me! Through trial and error I have gotten many of them right, however I can't figure them all out.
- Increased the memory partition to 400k because QuickTime doesn't deal with low memory situations very well.
Version 1.2
- Now is Open Music System compatible.
- Added "Volume" menu under the Preferences menu.
- Included a "Band In A Box Setup" Track File to get started with BIAB quickly.
- Rewrote the MIDI input function so that it should work with any format that the MIDI data is being sent in.
Version 1.1
- Now works with Band In a Box! (Yay!)
- Added "Preferences" menu so you can set it to hide while in the background.
- Added my e-mail address to the "About..." dialog.
- Included a "General MIDI Setup" 16 Track MIDI File to get started quickly.
Version 1.0
- First public release.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Where can I get the Apple MIDI Manager?
To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure where I got my copy from. It's distributed with some programs which use MIDI, but I have never seen it available on it's own anywhere on the net. I know that it is distributed with some programs on the info-mac archive (a demo version of "lime", a music notation program, includes it, I think.) I would have distributed my copy with the program, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to or not. I think that you have to get a licensing agreement from Apple or something like that. If anyone knows more about this, please send me e-mail!
Why doesn't the sound come out at the same time as I press a key?
This is QuickTime that is at fault. I have verified that the MIDI data is arriving in the program almost as soon as you press a key. However, when I call the QuickTime routine that is supposed to play the note, it doesn't always start right away. I have found that by turning off all or most of your extensions (Ram Doubler in particular seems to slow it down) it goes quicker, but still there is a noticeable time lag. Of course, I am using a IIci, on faster computers, this may not be a problem.
Why does it take a long time to add the first track in a file?
Again this is QuickTime playing around with memory and what not. If I could make it go quicker, I would! (Write a note to those people at Apple... ;-) ).
How do I get it to work with Band In A Box?
I keep getting messages from people who say that they can't get it to work with Band In A Box. I have BIAB version 5.02, and I have gotten it to work perfectly. It seems that BIAB turns off the volume on the Macintosh after starting up. If you want to hear anything with QuickTime MIDI Player, you will have to go to the Sound control panel and adjust the volume. (QuickTime MIDI Player 1.2 will allow you to do this if you are using Sound Manager version 3.0 or greater.) Once you have turned up the volume, return to BIAB and tell it to play stuff. You should now be getting BIAB's music out the Mac speaker! (Some people have noticed that BIAB doesn't play the music at a consistent speed. It seems that the more notes it is playing at once, the slower the music goes. This is only apparent with BIAB and not with any other applications that I know of.)
Shareware fees:
QuickTime MIDI Player is shareware and if you use it, please send in your registration fee of $15.00, so that you will recieve future upgrades and I will be able to contrinue supporting this program. I know that peaople cannot always afford the shareware fee (I'm a music student at the University of Alberta. We musicians don't exactly make a lot of money!), or you may not think that this program is worth $15.00. Please send in what you can. I cannot guarantee that this program will be updated if there is not enough response. Please send your registration fee to:
Terry Greeniaus
89 Lancaster Cres.
St. Albert, Alberta
Canada
T8N 2N9
Disclaimer:
QuickTime MIDI Player is distributed "as is." I make no guarantees or warranties on the quality of the product and I cannot be held liable for any problems that this software may create. This program has not been tested on any other computer but my Macintosh IIci and I will not be held responsible for any bad things that happen because it doesn't work on your computer. (Although it should work fine, since I haven't done anything unusual in this application.)
QuickTime MIDI Player may be distributed freely, as long as this documentation is included with the file. It may not be sold individually, but may be placed on CD's, disks, BBS's, etc. where there is no extra charge required to aquire this file other than the normal connect charges or cost of printing CD's etc.
