Interactive Music...er, Audio

Where's that Knight in shining armor?
What we need is some software company to make a program, which would allow a small, fast audio file to sound the same on every PC, with CD quality and the ability to be interactive. Then of course they'll have to give it away for free to everyone who owns or buys a PC. Right, that'll happen when Satan is wearing ice skates. Would someone please get the Lord of the Abyss a pair of leggings to go with those red figure skates? Microsoft to the rescue! (I can't believe I actually put that phrase in print). Who else could pull it off?
Microsoft has developed just what we needed: A program to ensure compatibility among sound cards, The Microsoft Synthesizer, and a program to create the audio content, DirectMusic Producer.

The Microsoft Synthesizer is a DownLoadable Sound (DLS) compatible software substitute for synthesizing hardware. Many sound cards are already DLS compatible and DLS-compatible software synthesizers are becoming available through other companies as well. So if your sound card isn't already hardware DLS compatible, the MS Synthesizer will substitute to ensure compatibility and it comes free with the DirectX API. The Microsoft Synthesizer is also installed automatically as a part of Internet Explorer so chances are pretty darn good that most PCs and all game players already have it installed on their systems.

Microsoft also produces a program called the DirectMusic Producer, which uses MIDI and the DLS standard to compose interactive audio. This too is provided free. So we now have the ability to create and implement interactive, CD quality audio at a fraction of the system resources required by linear Redbook audio. Kudos to Microsoft (now if they would only make the interface understandable to musicians, hint, hint…).

I did say CD quality didn't I?
So what is DLS you ask? DLS is a standard adopted by the MIDI Manufacturers Association in January of 1997. A DownLoadable Sound is basically a MIDI instrument created by taking a sample (a WAV file) of the sound from any source, be it a drum, a dog barking or an entire orchestra. That sound is stored in a DLS bank, which can be used exactly like and in place of the General MIDI instruments we all know and love (to hate). This means the same sounds you would currently hear in your Redbook audio tracks can be used in a MIDI composition. Instead of a two minute WAV of a violin solo taking up 20 MB of space you take a short sample of that violin sound which will most likely be less than 512K and make a DLS instrument out of it. A MIDI note then triggers that sound in the composition and the result is the same two minute violin solo at a fraction of the size. DLS combines the advantages of digital sampling with the compactness and flexibility of MIDI and functions independently from any on-board MIDI instrument sounds already in a sound card. If your sound card isn't already DLS compatible from the manufacturer, the Microsoft Synthesizer handles the processing. You simply send along the DLS collection of instruments with the MIDI composition and the song sounds the same on every PC. DirectX 8 makes use of the DLS2 standard, which adds many features. You can read more on DLS and DLS2 at the Midi Manufacturers Association website.

You might also notice that I have been using the term interactive audio and not interactive music. The reason is because a DLS instrument can be comprised of any sound, which means sound effects and voices as well as musical instruments. One of the demonstrations I saw from Microsoft was a sports game sound effect set where the crowd cheered when your team gets a hit and booed when the other team gets a hit. At the same time there was an announcer speaking, a vender hawking his wares and a general crowd ambience. All of these sounds layered on top of each other as needed by the game events without every having to switch tracks or getting the stutter you experience from loading and unloading an audio track.

Where have you been all my life?
You might wonder why, if this ability has been around since 1997, everyone doesn't use it. That's a valid question. As I pointed out earlier, the fear factor has kept developers from being interested in learning about it even if there was information easily accessible -- which there isn't. Since the DirectMusic Producer is a free program, all of the attention has been given to its creation has been in the technology and not the user interface. This means it is difficult to learn and use. Musicians are rarely programmers (although when I look around my studio I wonder how I got all of this gear to work together with three PCs) and therefore not inclined to deal with the problem solving required to figure it all out. In addition, it's not useful in other areas of the music industry, which means it's gotten little attention in the music community. Interactive audio also requires a whole new way of thinking about composing. You can't approach a composition in the traditional linear structure because changes in the game will dictate that your composition must change. If your entire life you've been taught, listened to and created music one way it takes serious dedication and focus to learn to look at audio in a completely different way. With the steep learning curve, it's difficult to justify the loss of productivity while you try to get a handle on it. Who'll pay the rent? Then, after you learn it you have to sell the developers and publishers on the technology. As a free program it generates no revenue, which means it gets no advertising funds. With little available information, it's a hard sell. It's much easier to go with what you know, and what you can sell.

Add up all of these things and you see why interactive audio hasn't taken the industry by storm. The bottom line however is that the ability to produce interactive audio is available and it's an exciting frontier for pioneering musicians and developers who are willing to explore beyond the boundaries. We owe it to our audience and ourselves to move in this direction and there is really no excuse not to be doing it. Yes it is more difficult to learn but I'm sure that learning a programming language or putting down the pencil and learning to draw with a graphics program was no piece of cake at first either. So now that you know CD quality, interactive audio is possible can you afford not to have it? Right now your competitor is thinking about it.