QuickTime Music Architecture
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When initialized, the note allocator searches for components of type 'inst' . These components may report a list of atomic instruments. They are called atomic instruments, because you create them with QT atoms. (QT atoms are described in Chapter 1, "Movie Toolbox," of QuickTime 3 Reference). These sounds can be embedded in a QuickTime movie, passed via a call to QuickTime, or dropped into the System Folder.
QuickTime 3 provides a public format for atomic instruments. Using the QuickTime calls for manipulating atoms, you construct in memory a hierarchical tree of atoms with the data that describes the instrument (see Figure 2 ). The tree of atoms lives inside an atom container. There is one and only one root atom per container. Each atom has a four-character (32-bit) type, and a 32-bit ID. Each atom may be either an internal node or a leaf atom with data.
Figure 2 An atomic instrument atom container
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