![]() ![]() 16 October 2000 ![]() If you have a comment about the content of this article, please feel free to vent in the OS/2 eZine discussion forums. |
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Midi Station Sequencer
In one of my many other secret lives,
I am a musician who records his music on his computer and distributes it over the
internet in the mp3 format (on sites like MP3.com, Listensmart.com, MusicBuilder.com,
etc.) | |||
Part One: Installation The most difficult part of using
Midi Station Sequencer is installing it. Not because the install program itself
is difficult to use, it's actually quite straightforward, butrather because Midi
Station Sequencer depends on your sound card being able to use the RTMIDI drivers
for OS/2 in order to properly record MIDI tracks. What is RTMIDI? Simply put, it's
a high resolution driver that allows OS/2 to play and record MIDI tracks with a
very high degree of precision -- more precision, in fact, than is available on other
platforms (like Windows). Unfortunately, getting a sound card to actually use RTMIDI
is something of a herculean effort. If you happen to have a Crystal TidalWave 128
ISA card, you're in luck, because RTMIDI works perfectly on it. If you happen to
have the MMPack that Thetaband Software sells,
you might also be in luck, because the MMPack includes an installer that greatly
increases the chance of RTMIDI working with your sound card, whatever it might be.
If you have a Creative Labs sound card, your luck will be greatly reduced -- Creative
abandoned the OS/2 market a long time ago, and while there is a project on OS/2
Netlabs underway to port the Linux drivers for the latest Creative soundcard over
to OS/2, it is still an alpha release and does not support RTMIDI. If you have a PCI sound card, chances
are not good that you will be able to use Midi Station Sequencer for MIDI sequencing.
The only PCI sound cards that I know of with any kind of OS/2 support are ones using
the Crystal chipset -- and even then, success has been inconsistent. In my own case,
I was able to get a Crystal-based PCI card to play sound, but I could never get
it to use the MIDI port at all. Some people have have more success, some less. This is by far the biggest hurdle
to using this application, and unfortunately it's not really something the developer
can do anything about. If you can get your sound card to recognize RTMIDI, you're
over the biggest hurdle, and can start playing with the application. Exploring Midi Station Sequencer When you launch Midi Station Sequencer
for the first time, you are introduced to the two main windows
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