Mail Archives: djgpp/1997/03/11/02:44:43
Shawn Hargreaves (Shawn AT talula DOT demon DOT co DOT uk) wrote:
: The spec I have describes type 2 as a "horizontally one-dimensional
: form" containing "one or more sequentially independent single-track
: patterns". Exactly what they mean by that is open to question, but I get
: the impression that each track is an independent piece of music, and
: they are not intended to be played simultaneously (eg. you could store
: several different songs in a single file, and randomly select one for a
: jukebox program). What I don't see is any way to specifiy the play
: order, without which limits the usefulness of the format. I'm also not
: aware of any programs that can edit format 2 files, while every
: sequencer is able to insert text tags into type 0 and 1 files, so I
: think using custom markers would be a more robust approach...
I have the same spec. :) My guess was that in a format 2 file the tracks
are like blocks in a tracker program. So format 2 would let part of the
music be repeated without having to physically duplicate it. (I have a 200k
MIDI song on my hard drive...) But they don't mention anything about the
play sequence.
I'm not sure if encoding the repeat point in the midi files (and modifying
the midi player) is really worth the bother. It seems to me that if you just
made some of the midi player's variables globally visible (like the current
play position in the midi file) this could all be trivially done by the game
itself. That would also open up some other possibilities, like exactly
synchronizing graphics with the music.
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