Bypass Vixen Internal Music Player

[buckanear]

Is there any way to bypass the internal Music player in Vixen and use one of our own choosing?

I do expect to see some flaming darts thrown my way for this request but I do have MIDI files and there are plenty of very good MIDI files around the net. With MIDI files I don't have to worry about the RIAA and copyright infringements either. I have two very good MIDI players loaded into my PC and would rather use either one of them instead the internal player. I can convert the MIDI files to MP3 but then that defeats the use of MIDI. The internal music player has some issues playing MIDI files. Notes hang and that becomes bothersome. I don't want to delete and reinstall drivers every time I start Vixen either. It is to painful and stupid to do so. I can get around the limitations of the MIDI reader in Vixen. It is not perfect but it is better than nothing.

ducking as I ask.

james

[gigogig]

i have done somthing like this with a vbs script reading the log output from vixen (video), timing isent perfackt and it gets wors the longer the song is but it works. all i do i devote one chanal output to let the vbs know what to do. so if chanal one = valu 001 then play this, on change if chanal 1 = valu 002 then play that. helps if you can fit your player and your files into a ram drive, and with midi ill bet you can.

[kingofkya]

Does vixen use the standard MS midi library, you can simple get a midi adapter(to go to a keyboard or something) for $20 or so and loop it back to the pc then have your other programs simple read the incoming midi.

Used to do this with old dos games

[buckanear]

Does vixen use the standard MS midi library, you can simple get a midi adapter(to go to a keyboard or something) for $20 or so and loop it back to the pc then have your other programs simple read the incoming midi.

Used to do this with old dos games

Since I still use XP SP3, I tell Windows to default to Yamaha XG library and that has a much better sound than that of M$. Sadly the XG player does not install onto Vista. My one thought is to have Vixen download the whole sequences into a standalone controller and use FTDI's VMusic to play the MIDI files controlled by a VinculumII processor. Still that is a lot of work and extra cost. I was just hoping to be able to use the Yamaha XG player or Winamp with a DSP processor. The DSP processor plugin to WINamp can do all the preemphesis and filtering to send to an FM transmitter.

james

[Palmdale Haunter]

I am very interested in this too...
I have been out of the midi scene for a long time (a decade) but I feel there is some real value to using midi as a key component to the show.
Are you running Windows 7? I am...
I am finding out that Windows 7 does not have the feature that has existed in previous versions of Windows to select the default midi device. One has to edit the registry to do this.
I also understand that an application using midi may make the selection and bypass the default.
I have downloaded a piece of software that is a virtual midi port that in theory will allow one to set one application to output on that port and another application to input on the same port and then one will have one application driving the other. I have not had much luck though using it with Vixen. I am assuming that Vixen is selecting a device that just happens to be the default one.

My goal is to use a midi file in Vixen and then slave a digital audio workstation (DAW) app like Reaper that is capable of essentially unlimited audio and midi tracks to drive the audio for my show. I will use DMX for lighting and animation of props.
I will use midi to connect to a hardware sampler that would have 8 individual audio outputs to run to discrete amplifiers around the yard. The wave based audio can be run through multiple sound cards too, again to distributed amplifiers...
I know this sounds complex (it is) but I really think this is the best way to create a "show" that is in synch adn with as much aural excitement as visual..
Vixen has obviously decided to focus on the visual aspect. I am looking for a way to get past a stereo output on my PC for the audio experience...

I should mention my main focus in Halloween but Christmas is not far behind...;)