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Microsoft's DirectMusic Producer
DirectMusic Producer (DMP) is a whole new approach to composition. This approach focuses the composition process on the basic elements of a piece. You can instantly vary the musical elements in a final product, whether that music is linear or dynamically changing. DMP is great for producing interactive music, whether that music winds up in a game or some other kind of application. I think the product is great for game composers, but it could just as easily find its way into the creative tool belt of anyone writing music with a PC. The DMP Environment Upon examining a fresh installation of DMP (which came within the DirectX 7 developer’s kit, currently in beta at press time), many of the modules have a familiar look and feel. The main window features a track overview of typical sequence components, such as tempo, time signature, and the various instrument tracks. But there are also tracks dedicated to chord movement, patch-change groupings, and system-exclusive data (Figure 1). This segment editor is where imported MIDI data can be viewed, edited, and assigned to either a selected GM synthesizer or custom instrument samples. In this simplest form, DMP performs like a typical sequencer with the added advantage of MIDI and sample playback that requires no additional hardware other than the audio output (DAC) of the computer. DirectMusic brings support for the DLS standard and compatible software synthesizers to the world of PC game audio, and computer music in general.
In the past, computer-based game music relied on the hardware synthesizer installed on the sound card. The advantage of that system was that there was always a base-level GM synthesizer available, to which musicians could write and play music. The disadvantage was that there was no guarantee that music would sound the same when played back on different machines. Wavetable synthesis — both in hardware and software — increased the probability of better playback quality, but playback consistency was still a problem. Using downloadable sounds, you can ship a MIDI performance in DirectMusic or another suitable playback engine with its own custom sample instruments, you can use the default DLS set, or you can use combination of both and strike a balance between the use of unique sounds and asset economy. This flexibility affords the DirectMusic composer tons of options, similar to working in a big, professional studio. First, DMP comes with the Microsoft software synthesizer which contains the Roland licensed instrument set. Also available is the Yamaha S-YXG software synthesizer, which is not only DLS compatible, but also comes with all of the synthesis parameters found in the XG specification. There will be more third-party synthesizers and sample sets available in the future, to be sure. In the configuration window of DMP you can create a setup, which addresses any one or more of the available synthesizer engines (Figure 3). This window also shows the various features and capabilities for each synth. Other synths, such as installed hardware cards and external MIDI gear, can also be configured for composing, but they will have different timing latencies from the software synths. This is handy for real-time MIDI entry and adding new data to earlier tracks. Unless the synthesizer (soft or hard) is DLS-compatible, it will not support custom sample instruments.
Now that I’ve described the synth rack of our virtual studio in DMP, let’s look at the sampler side of the product. DMP provides a set of tools for creating instrument sets from the basic wave files. To use the built-in DLS editor in DMP, first you create a DLS set in the explorer window, located to the left of the main segment window (Figure 1). This gives you two subdirectories called Instruments and Waves. By right-clicking the Waves directory, you can import custom samples, whether they are individual instrument files for use in a multi-sample key map, or longer phrase samples that can be looped to add ambience (which is similar to the .MOD file format). Once the samples have been integrated into the Waves section, they are available in the instrument editor. Again, right-clicking on the directory icon allows you to create a new instrument. Clicking on that instrument gives you the instrument editor with all the editing parameters found in hardware sampling utilities, or programs such as Sample Cell for the Macintosh. Familiar features include regions, range, LFO, and ADSR control of both volume and pitch (Figure 4). Between the preset GM synthesizers available and custom-sampled instruments you can cook up yourself, DMP really delivers a virtual studio for musical composition and playback.
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Features
Introduction/
The DMP Environment
