Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!mephisto!mcnc!rti!bcw
From: bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: MIDI for Windows
Summary: Windows Sound routines
Message-ID: <3601@rti.UUCP>
Date: 21 Feb 90 05:05:23 GMT
References: <2540@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Distribution: na
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, RTP, NC
Lines: 37

In article <2540@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>, carlc@mars.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Carl Christofferson) writes:
> In article <1990Feb19.205639.15983@chinet.chi.il.us> you write:
> >Hey one and all.  I've got a customer here that wants to develop apps
> >for MIDI in Windows.
> 
> I am also interested in developing MIDI/music apps for Windows, but I have
> no experience in this area at all!  Can anyone direct me to some good books
> on developing MIDI/music apps and on how to use the Windows Sound functions?
> Petzold doesn't mention them at all.

I'm a bit puzzled by this question.  It might be easier to answer 
questions if I knew what problem you are having.  The Windows sound 
functions are simple enough (really too simple for a lot of purposes).
One of the big problems is that IBM-PC only has one voice unless you 
get additional hardware, & as someone mentioned finding a driver for 
the new hardware might be difficult.  I haven't done this - just played 
around with the sound functions a bit on the standard hardware.  The
generalization to programming on more sophisticated hardware is pretty
straightforward, given the hardware and a driver for it;  however the
functions available to the Windows app are not really going to be able
to take full advantage of sophisticated hardware;  the best you will
be able to do will probably be calling up predefined wave shapes and
multiple voices (no way, for example, to define your own shapes).

The only major problem I've had is that the SDK documentation does not 
say how the notes map into the numbers passed to SetVoiceNote, and the 
notes produced by any reasonable values I've tried sound "off" to my ear.
Maybe it's just that the PC's speaker is of such low fidelity.  I've
had it on my list of things to do to try programming the actual note
frequencies with SetVoiceSound, but have never gotten around to it.

Unfortunately I don't know any better books than the SDK, though 
since the routines are so simple (at least compared to the GDI), the
SDK is (barely) adequate.  If you have a specific question I'll try 
to answer it ...

						Bruce C. Wright