[directmusic] Re: newbie question: band management ?
- From: "Saul Bottcher" <saul.bottcher@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <directmusic@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 09:30:37 -0400
Hi Roger in France (greets from Canada!),
Two things to know:
1) Segments with no band track will use the most recently loaded band.
If you have a style track, the segment will use patterns from that style,
but it won't take the band from that style automatically (what if the style
had multiple bands? how would it choose?). So, in other words, a band
track is necessary at some point to load your band.
(Some people will leave band tracks out of segments when the correct
band has been loaded in an earlier segment - this can save 8-10k per segment
on disk, which can make a big difference to large projects).
2) A band track in a segment does *not* contain a link to a band in a
style. It contains a *copy* of the band, which coincidentally has the same
name. This is confusing, since (for example) style tracks *do* contain
links (not copies of the styles)! I don't know why band tracks are
implemented this way, and I've yet to meet anyone who wouldn't prefer a
dynamic link system instead. But, that's the way it is.
In my most recent DirectMusic job, we had songs containing about 300
segments, so we loaded the band manually at the beginning, and used segments
with no band tracks. This literally saved us MB of space. However, if disk
space doesn't matter to you, I suggest you use band tracks to avoid problems
with the wrong band being loaded when a segment plays (and since the band
track is added by default in DMProducer).
Have fun!
Saul.
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