[openbeos-midi] Re: activity/status?
- From: Marc Antonio Sciglimpaglia <omnivore@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Martijn Sipkema <msipkema@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 02:11:47 -0700 (PDT)
> > Cool. I wanted to ask you a couple of things about a software synth, since
> we
> > are talking about it -
> > 1) Do real musicians want/need one?
>
> Sure. Probably not a GM synth though.
>
I generally agree with the anti GM sentiment, although one might imagine
that there would be people in the small-time game development category who
would benefit from a GM kit.
> > 2) Are there any out there that are ok and reasonably well licensed?
>
> I found http://www.iiwu.org/iiwusynth/index.htm . It is GPL. I don't think
> that
> should be a problem since linking with libraries that "come with major parts
> of
> a proprietary operating system" (gpl-faq) then you can link with them.
I like this one, particularly because of the support for soundfonts. If
we are to provide a built in softsynth, it would be very crucial in my
opinion for it to be extensible. Plus there is a massive amount of free
soundfonts available.
> > 3) Are they as hard to write as I think that they would be?
>
> Probably yes.
depending on the system used to create it of course. For example, I've
been working on
a standalone software synth for MacOS for a few months that is being
developed with the MAX/MSP programming environment as a base. This is
irrelevant in context with a built in MIDI synth for the kit, as systems
like the above mentioned open source synth would better serve those goals.
But...this brings me to an idea that I've been pondering. A lot of this
is out of the scope of the MIDI kit, but it is related rather closely.
Something I would love to see at some point, would be a set of
tools/functions/objects that are made to make the writing of 3rd party
softsynths/DSP simpler and integrated. Sort of like VST, LADSPA, etc,
only integrated with the OS in a way that encourages the development of
these sort of apps. A Beos synth/dsp api would be wicked cool.
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