Re: a question for midi enthusiasts who have a Braille Note MPower
Hi all,
Well 3 years, 2 months and 12 days after I created this topic, it's time to bump it. I've just found some more information. And no I haven't spent 3 years nonstop on this!
As you may know, the Microsoft Wavetable synth uses DLS (downloadable sounds) files to produce its sounds. Most DLs files are nothing more than a set of PCM wav files with instructions on how to play those wav files. That's how the gm.dls file supplied with pretty much every Windows version since Win 98 works.
However the fun has only started, as the old Windows CE synth which this topic is about also uses DLs sounds! The DLS file it uses can be found on the keysoft system disc of the MPower, and is called wince_gm.dls. I've also uploaded the dls file at this link:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/540 … nce_gm.dls
Now, here's where things get complicated. If you try to import the wince_gm.dls file into DLS players, most will not be able to do anything with it. However if you give them the standard gm.dls file supplied with desktop Windows, they normally just work without issue. So what's going on here?
The problem here is that wince_gm.dls is a mobile DLS file, and these types of DLs files allow for alternative formats to store the wave data. The most common wav format is uncompressed PCM, but technically DLS allows other formats. For example you could use ADPCM compressed wavs and so long as the appropriate ACM codecs are installed, the DLS synth *should* be able to decode and use them. Windows comes with some built-in ACM codecs for mp3 and a few other formats, and older versions of Windows also come with old WMA ACM codecs as well, though I've never gotten them to work.
So the reason you can't plunk the wince_gm.dls file into your player of choice is because most things don't have proper codecs to read the samples. In fact most players I've tried will give some error saying the file is unsupported, they won't even try to load the instrument data, they'll just crash when trying to load samples. I've tried Winamp's DLS midi synth, as well as a few other sample converters like Extreme Sample Convert and Awave Studio, none of which could read the data.
There is a little bit of hope though. While looking around for dls editors, I found an old program called Direct Music Producer,which seems to allow composers to utilize the direct music framework to handle game audio for old PC games. One of its features is designing custom DLs sound banks which are what Direct Music uses to play midi files. I thought I'd give it a shot.
Direct Music Producer would not install on Win 7 X64, but I was able to get it to work by manually registering the dll and ocx files it depends on. However it still could not read wince_gm.dls. I then tried installing the program properly with its installer on a Windows XP VM, and had a bit more success. I don't have the technical expertese to say why it would be better on the VM, other than to say that it was probably designed for XP and not 7...
Direct Music producer was able to read 28 samples from the DLS. That's not many, but it's at least a start. It also was able to read the DLS instrument data, meaning that although I can't decode most of the samples, I can see what they are called, where they're used, and their attributes. I can even dig into DLS instrument parameters, so I could hypothetically rebuild the DLS by replacing the references to those compressed samples with uncompressed ones to make it work.
My guess at this point would be that the compressed samples were encoded with the ACM MP3 or WMA codecs. But again I'm just guessing here.
I've actually considered sampling the synthesizer myself and making a new DLs or sound font. It would be a lot of tedious work and would likely take ages. But at least I have access to the insturment data, so I can see what notes were sampled, what the note ranges are, where the loops are, etc. And assuming I actually do follow through and re-sample everything, I can then go about fixing all the really awful glitches that the samples have, and make a half decent replica of the synth without all its issues. whether I'll eventually do all that, I don't know. I'd like to, but meh ... I've already invested a ton of time obsessing over this already, just to hit dead ends. And while re-sampling the synth the way I just described would probably work, I'm not sure it would be worth it. If there's enough interest I'll certainly do it, since I'm just the type who would. Lol. But for now, I'm still trying to decide whether to really start on that or not.
_______________________________________________ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
