Re: Sound

[mfb@mbunix.mitre.org (Michael F Brenner)]

Andy > ... package to put either WAV or even MIDI sounds into my Ada programs?

Martin > ... Air Force Academy ... a simple interface to play WAV files at
       > ftp://ftp.usafa.af.mil/pub/dfcs/carlisle/mcc-sounds/mcc-sounds.adb
       > and ads, working under gnat 3.10 and Windows 95.

This file needs a dummy, null parent visible part Package MCC. After
adding that, I confirmed that it also works under Windows NT 4 under
gnat 3.10.

If this program is maintained further, the constant 16#20000# could
be given the name snd_no_wait.

The other part of the request is a little harder. To play MIDI, you need
instruments (either software or hardward) that produce the sounds
requested by the MIDI file. You see, the MIDI file does not have
sounds in it, but rather piano-keyboard keystrokes: start note,
stop note, choose instrument, etc. 

There are several ways to do MIDI. 

The HARDWARE way is to buy a MIDI keyboard. The MIDI keyboard
has a serial port that connects to the computer's serial port. 
The computer sends the MIDI to the keyboard and the keyboard
sends the sound waves to the computer-sound-card audio-port which 
encodes them as a WAV file. Some keyboards have the feature that
you can download samples (that is, notes from additional instruments)
into the keyboard. 

The SOFTWARE way is to purchase a synthesizer software which is often
called a MIDI sequencer. The sequencer reads the MIDI file and 
merges in the sound samples for each note on each instrument. The
sequencer outputs the audio which is then sampled and encoded
into a WAV file.

Mike