Many thanks to Kevin Patfield for his insightful comments and suggestions on how to improve QuickTime MIDI Player. Anyone else who has ideas, feel free to send me e-mail. My address is printed at the bottom of this file and in the title screen and About... box of QuickTime MIDI Player. (Note that this address will probably be invalid at the end of July... I'll keep you all posted for changes to it!)
QuickTime MIDI Player is an application which will allow you to play MIDI data through your Macintosh speakers using QuickTime 2.0 and the MIDI Manager. To use QuickTime MIDI Player, you will require both QuickTime 2.0 and the Apple MIDI Manager. This shareware version of QuickTime MIDI Player fully functional, but please send in your registration fee of $15.00 so that I may continue to write new programs and provide updates for this one.
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 different instruments at once... but this doesn't limit you to 4 tracks, all it means is that you can't play more than 4 different tracks simultaneously.) 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 slow down QuickTime MIDI Player a lot! It takes time to load the different instruments on to the track. You will almost certainly hear a break in the music while it is loading. (This is all from experience on my IIci. I don't know how fast it works on other computers... Any feedback would be appreciated! If anyone knows of a quick way to do this, please tell me! I am currently using NAStuffToneDescription with the program change number, then passing the ToneDesciption to NAFindNoteChannelTone and finally passing the resultinh instrumentNumber to NASetNoteChannelInstrument. This seems to take a lot of time!) 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.
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.
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 one.
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.
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.
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.
9. Open an application that can play MIDI and is Apple MIDI Manager compatible.
10. Using the PatchBay application, join the applications 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.)
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!!!!!
11. In your MIDI application, 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!
Updates:
Version 1.0
- First public release
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
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... ;-) ).
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.
I can also be reached through e-mail at tgreen@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca
