APPENDIX D: QuickTime™ & MIDI (Including a List of GM Sounds) QuickTime Musical Instruments QuickTime is Apple's de-facto standard for multimedia on the Macintosh and Intel PC. It contains a wealth of "components" for creating and presenting movies, VR panoramas, sound, and music. A major upgrade to QuickTime 3.0 is just around the corner, with even more amazing capabilities. QuickTime comes bundled with every Mac as a system extension. To gain the capabilities of QuickTime you must have it in your Extensions folder along with its companion parts which extend its abilities. The current version, 2.5, has the following files: In your Extensions Folder.... QuickTime™ QuickTime™ MPEG Extension QuickTime™ Musical Instruments QuickTime™ PowerPlug QuickTime™ VR In the Control Panels folder.... QuickTime™ Settings FretPet can make use of QuickTime™ Musical Instruments to play music through the Mac's built-in sound output. If this component is turned off in the Extensions Manager™ or Conflict Catcher™ then FretPet will revert to Sound Manager sounds, for which there is only a single rather rough sound sample. Get a copy of the latest Quicktime from . M I D I FretPet can play its sequences through your sampler, synthesizer, or drum machine using QuickTime's MIDI support. This will give you a wider range of sounds and produce a much higher quality output. In the process of getting together this latest beta version, I've had to do some high and low searching to find out how to channel sound through QuickTime's MIDI support. To save you the same difficulties I had, here's the scoop on the QuickTime™ Settings control panel. Select the Music panel from the popup menu. You will see several checkbox options. On most systems all of these will be grayed out except for "QuickTime Music Synthesizer." On my system "General MIDI On … Port" options were never available, even with Apple's (obsolete) Midi Manager. Apple includes no direct MIDI support under QuickTime 2.x. The last option, "OMS," is for the Opcode Music System™. OMS is THE set of tools to give your Mac an automatic rapport with MIDI devices. You can download the latest version from or . The General Theory of MIDI - tivity The FretStuff->Instrument Settings menu item (<◊ >) lets you select from any of 135 different sounds. However... Unless you're connected to a real MIDI synthesizer you only have access to a fraction of these. Unsupported instruments appear in ITALICS in the "Instrument:" popup menu. (See the List of GM Sounds below to see which sounds are available.) ◊ THE INSTRUMENT SETTINGS DIALOG Your synthesizer may have several instrument banks capable of thousands of instrument sounds, but you will only have access to the 135 provided via the General MIDI standard. You can bypass this limitation by manually setting instruments on your synthesizer prior to playing. The QuickTime Synthesizer provides several built-in instrument sounds including a passable piano and a harpsichord-sounding guitar. If these sounds affect you negatively…… start saving for that MIDI setup. Beyond QuickTime™ Sound Synths are pretty cheap these days, and most of them now have MIDI support. If you're serious about using your computer to do any music work you can't go wrong by getting a synth. I recommend a small rack-mount or half-rack synth box and a separate "dumb" MIDI keyboard. This provides you with a decent setup for sequencing and makes it possible to control multiple synths from the same keyboard with or without turning on the computer. For developing FretPet I used the 640-sound Alesis NanoSynth™ and the Roland PC-200 MK II MIDI Keyboard Controller. For a MIDI interface I chose the Mark Of The Unicorn FastLane™. All of these fit nicely in the confines of a small multimedia workstation. Just remember these essential words of wisdom: "Sticky-backed Velcro™" The NanoSynth™ is the equivalent of an Alesis QS6 in a tiny 5.5" x 1.5" x 4.5" case. The small size conceals a powerful 64-voice multitimbral synthesizer. As a slave to the Mac it does a beautiful job. The Roland keyboard has 4 octaves of full-size velocity-sensitive keys, octave-shift buttons to extend its range to 6 octaves, various MIDI commands for changing instruments, etc., and a bender / modulator to add color. All-in-all this makes a killer amateur MIDI setup - especially with a cool tool like FretPet. *pat - pat* ____________________________________ LIST OF GM SOUNDS Numbers are standard GM values. Items in blue are included in the built-in QuickTime™ Synthesizer. ____________________________________ Piano Reed 1 Acoustic Grand Piano 65 Soprano Sax 2 Bright Acoustic Piano 66 Alto Sax 3 Electric Grand Piano 67 Tenor Sax 4 HonkyTonk Piano 68 Baritone Sax 5 Rhodes Piano 69 Oboe 6 Chorused Piano 70 English Horn 7 Harpsichord 71 Bassoon 8 Clavinet 72 Clarinet Chromatic Percussion Pipe 9 Celesta 73 Piccolo 10 Glockenspiel 74 Flute 11 Music Box 75 Recorder 12 Vibraphone 76 Pan Flute 13 Marimba 77 Bottle Blow 14 Xylophone 78 Shakuhachi 15 Tubular Bells 79 Whistle 16 Dulcimer 80 Ocarina Organ Synth Lead 17 Hammond Organ 81 Square Wave 18 Percussive Organ 82 Saw Wave 19 Rock Organ 83 Calliope 20 Church Organ 84 Chiffer 21 Reed Organ 85 Charang 22 Accordion 86 Solo Vox 23 Harmonica 87 5th Saw Wave 24 Tango Accordion 88 Bass and Lead Guitar Synth Pad 25 Acoustic Nylon Guitar 89 Fantasy 26 Acoustic Steel Guitar 90 Warm 27 Electric Jazz Guitar 91 Polysynth 28 Electric Clean Guitar 92 Choir 29 Electric Muted Guitar 93 Bowed 30 Overdriven Guitar 94 Metal 31 Distortion Guitar 95 Halo 32 Guitar Harmonics 96 Sweep Bass Synth Effect 33 Acoustic Fretless Bass 97 Ice Rain 34 Electric Bass Fingered 98 Sound Tracks 35 Electric Bass Picked 99 Crystal 36 Fretless Bass 100 Atmosphere 37 Slap Bass 1 101 Brightness 38 Slap Bass 2 102 Goblins 39 Synth Bass 1 103 Echoes 40 Synth Bass 2 104 Space Strings and Orchestra Ethnic 41 Violin 105 Sitar 42 Viola 106 Banjo 43 Cello 107 Shamisen 44 Contrabass 108 Koto 45 Tremolo Strings 109 Kalimba 46 Pizzicato Strings 110 Bagpipe 47 Orchestral Harp 111 Fiddle 48 Timpani 112 Shanai Ensemble Percussive 49 Acoustic String Ensemble 1 113 Tinkle Bell 50 Acoustic String Ensemble 2 114 Agogo 51 SynthStrings 1 115 Steel Drums 52 SynthStrings 2 116 Woodblock 53 Aah Choir 117 Taiko Drum 54 Ooh Choir 118 Melodic Drum 55 Synth Vox 119 Synth Drum 56 Orchestra Hit 120 Reverse Cymbal Brass Sound Effects 57 Trumpet 121 Guitar Fret Noise 58 Trombone 122 Breath Noise 59 Tuba 123 Seashore 60 Muted Trumpet 124 Bird Tweet 61 French Horn 125 Telephone Ring 62 Brass Section 126 Helicopter 63 Synth Brass 1 127 Applause 64 Synth Brass 2 128 Gunshot GM Drum Kits 16385 Standard Kit 16393 Room Kit 15401 Power Kit 16409 Electronic Kit 16410 Analog Kit 16425 Brush Kit 16433 Orchestra Kit