Since you are the only one posting here so far, Chris ? I figured I could take a chance and
ask you a question with out interfering in the general discussion. I have been asked to
produce sound effect files for a game that is written in Java 3d. These will be
environmental and ambient sound loops. Two main questions: 1) he has requested the
effects in midi format, what am i missing ? I am assuming that midi files i send him will have
to call sounds from General Midi on whatever sound card is in the users system.
2) since i don't thing sending him midi format will work can you give me any tips on what
bit depth I should use to keep file size down and any other limitations i should be aware of
in producing the files for him. As you may have guessed this is the first project of this type
I have taken on. I am running a dedicated DAW station using Cubase VST 24 and will be
using an alesis QS 6.1 for creating most of the files

Thanks in advance for your time

Hi Alan, welcome aboard! I've never been real good at explaing things by typing but here it goes.

It sounds confusing if your sending environmental and ambient sound loops you personally designed.

Maybe if you are using as an example an EMU system Orbit, Planet Phatt. They have some environmental and ambient sounds. If he uses the same keyboard mods then you are in business. He will hear exactly what you programmed it to sound like!

If you are sending your music to him as GM file then there is no compressing or bit conversion to do. You just program the sequences and then send the finished GM (midi) sequences to him. He then imports your midi files into his player or sequencer and presto!; that's the beauty of General Midi!

General midi means example: all kick drum sounds are located at C2, snares at D2 etc.

The reasons not to use GM is not all GM players are of the same quality. You may have an advanced sound library with really cool bass guitars, drums, strings etc, but his system is less advanced. Cheesy strings, synth drums and so on. More kareoke sounding lol! The end user publishing the music should be the one with the most advanced sound library/card.

GM works excellent over the internet because you can up load/down load the data for a 5 minute song in seconds. The sequence data is read by your GM player ( example: quicktime) then played at 8bit/12bit/16/24 bit, what ever you set your player at.

If you are sending "real" music to him that you designed and looped. that's a different thing altogether. You would need to send the music along with the midi files. Telling him that the sampled train sound must be located at example notes C4 to C5 on his sampler. I think a system exclusive can be sent too but I've never done it on line. Maybe another member will add to this?

exciting world lol!

hope I helped

Chris

:cool: