Beginning Game Audio Programming [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

INSTALLING DIRECTMUSIC PRODUCER

First thing's first—you'll find the setup program for DirectMusic Producer on your CD, as part of the DirectX SDK. I'm not going to walk you through setup—it's nothing special. Consult the DirectMusic Producer documentation if you run into trouble.

Setting Up Your MIDI Keyboard

To set up your MIDI keyboard in DirectMusic Producer, click on the toolbar button that looks like a MIDI port (see Figure A.1).

Figure A.1: Click on the toolbar button that looks like a MIDI port to adjust your MIDI configuration.

The most important setting in the dialog is the MIDI input drop-down. You shouldn't need to change the other settings (echo, latency, and synthesizer), but if you're curious, DirectMusic Producer help will tell you what they're for.

You might think that you should be able to play notes on your keyboard and hear them now, but because of how DirectMusic Producer works, you can't just yet. To test your MIDI keyboard input, perform the following steps (see Figure A.2):

Click the New toolbar button and select Style. DirectMusic will prompt you for the name of a project—the name doesn't matter, but it's "MidiTest" for the purposes of this example.

You should now have a tree of objects on the left of your screen. Navigate to the Patterns folder, open it, and double-click Pattern1.

In the right pane of the screen, there is a blue square with "1 (1): 1" on it. Double-click this and a keyboard should appear down the left-hand side.

Click on a key of the keyboard. You should hear the corresponding note, and the whole section should turn light yellow. You should now be able to play notes on your keyboard and hear them.

Choose Close Project from the File menu, and don't save your changes.

Navigate to where the project was created in step 1, and delete it (unless you changed things, it should be in My Documents\DMUSProducer).

Figure A.1: A test project that you can use to see if your MIDI input is working.

If Your MIDI Keyboard Isn't Working

Here are some things to check if you're new to MIDI and it appears that your keyboard isn't talking to DirectMusic:

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Make sure that the computer's MIDI Out is connected to your keyboard's MIDI In, and vice-versa. Do not connect In to In or Out to Out. This is by far the most common problem.

Ensure that DirectMusic is using the right MIDI input as explained above.

Ensure that the sound output device is also correct (in that same dialog), and that nothing is accidentally muted (hey, it happens!).

Check to make sure your MIDI port is installed correctly by going to your Device Manager, in Control Panel\System.

Make sure that there's nothing special you need to do to your keyboard to make it talk MIDI. Some keyboards require you to enter MIDI mode before they'll send data out the MIDI port.

In general, setting up MIDI under Windows is not a difficult task. I've never encountered a MIDI problem caused by anything low level: IRQs, old/buggy drivers, bad cables, and so on. Most of my MIDI problems have been caused by not telling my music software to listen for MIDI, or by not telling my keyboard to send MIDI.