Conference hydra::amiga_v1

4761.0. "Bars & Pipe Multimedia Kit" by RIPPLE::LUKE_TE () Wed May 22 1991 18:59

    I just bought Bars & Pipes Multimedia Kit and have finally been able to
    accomplish some multimedia tasks I've spent a long time trying to put
    together.  I wanted "good music" synchronized to my graphics, not SMUS
    music, so I have been trying to get MIDI and Performer and Director to
    work together.  Full blown sequencers take up so much CPU resource on
    my stock 68000 Amiga 2000 that playing a MIDI file and animations at
    the same time was very jerky, both for the music and the animation.
    
    B&P Multimedia kit has a great MIDI player that plays in the background
    and uses resources so sparingly that noticable differences in the
    playback speed of animations are hard to detect.  The MIDI player has
    an AREXX port for control such as loading songs, start/stop songs, set
    and change volume, start at specific points within the song and wait
    for specific points in the song.
    
    Another piece of the kit is an tool called Cue Cards which lets notes
    on a certain track(s) trigger an AREXX message or a keystroke.  It is a
    little limited and only works within the full blown sequencer (which
    hogs CPU resources and slows down animations) so I use a product called
    MIDI-mice which runs in the background and converts MIDI note on/off
    into keyboard events or AREXX messages.  It works with the MIDI player.
    
    So now I have a small Director program which starts Performer and loads
    the images.  When Performer says it's ready, it starts the MIDI player
    song which sends the notes on/off to MIDI-mice which sends the
    appropriate keystrokes at the appropriate time to Performer to change
    images, step through animations, etc.  At the same time the MIDI player
    control track and MIDI-mice are controlling the Supergen genlock,
    fading in and out the background and foreground at the appropriate
    times to let live video show through.  The Director script can also add
    live sound effects at the appropriate times.  (This is a music video
    type application).
    
    If you've read down this far, maybe you're interested.  At any rate, I
    was excited to finally put so many pieces together.
    
    the B&P Kit also includes an AREXX capability for the full blown Bars
    and Pipes Sequencer and a SMUS converter which converts B&P sequences
    to SMUS form and back.  Since B&P reads standard MIDI files, it is
    theoretically possible to convert SFM to SMUS, but I haven't had any
    success yet.  I can convert not too complex native B&P sequences and I 
    can convert complex SMF files to B&P, but when I try to convert these
    converted SMF files to SMUS the system generates a software error.  I'm
    still working on this.
      

	Director toolkit (maybe also director v.2) can respond instantly
	to midi controller input, I've only run the demo.
tom

    The thing I like about MIDI-mice over the Director Toolkit is that it
    is much more flexible in the types of keyboard combinations it can
    trigger.  The Toolkit only does the basic keystrokes, MIDI-mice can
    simulate mouse movements, mouse clicks, arrow keys and hot-keys (such
    as LEFT-AMIGA F1)  This is how I control the Supergen using the HOTKEYS
    program from Supergen and letting MIDI-mice trigger the LEFT-AMIGA
    Function keys.  MIDI-mice cost me $85 and for a while there with the
    Director Toolkit and the Cue Card Tool in Bars and Pipes, I thought
    maybe I had wasted it, but when I actually started trying to do real
    things, only MIDI-mice had enough flexibility.
    
    Terry
    

    Which version of the director Tool kit are you using. I know the latest
    toolkit for the Director II is not yet shipped but those that want can
    order a prerelease disk that has the midi on it.
    							bill

    I have the pre-release version of the Toolkit which is just basically
    the old MIDI module made to work with V2. of Director.  It's also made
    more or less to use with an external sequencer/controller since it 
    doesn't share the MIDI port very intelligently (It can't be used with
    the SMUS module).  The note I got with the pre-release Toolkit led
    me to believe that the new Toolkit would be completely reworked and
    include many things that the old Toolkit didn't have.  I'm not sure 
    whether that involves the MIDI module as well, it wasn't very specific.
    
    Terry