Logging Sounds to Disc (DiskWriter?) \ VOGONS

Logging Sounds to Disc (DiskWriter?)

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First post, by Thomas Harte

Posted on 2003-04-05, 17:38

Thomas Harte Offline

I would like very much to be able to capture the Roland music of an old game to a .wav file. I believe VDMSound is supposed to be able to do this using its DiskWriter module. I have downloaded everything, including the latest updates, and yet I cannot get this feature to work under Windows XP, using a DELL machine with a Celeron 1.4Ghz CPU and what the control panel names as a 'SoundMAX Digital Audio' sound output device (using the Microsoft soft synth for General MIDI output).

In the 'Advanced VDMSound Properties' dialogue associated with my game and provided by the VDMSound Launchpad, underneath 'Output' all of the 'File:' options are greyed out. Using the method to configure DiskWriter from the 'Follow These Guidelines When Submitting Help Requests ' post in this forum yields the following yes/no error dialogue box with the title 'Validation Warning' when I launch my application:

"The following section(s) could not be associated with any module:

- [SBWavePlayer.depends] (C:\DOCUMEN~1\Thomas\LOCALS~1\Temp\~VLP7Da7.INI:1)

Do you want to continue?"

The [SBWavePlayer.depends] section is one of the sections that the post in this forum suggests you add to the Advanced tab of the VDMSound Launchpad related configuration menu. If I continue the game starts as per normal with all the sounds in place but doesn't save a thing.

I can't find any other information regarding DiskWriter anywhere on this site or in any of the docs. Is it a currently usable feature?

Reply 1 of 5, by Snover

Posted on 2003-04-05, 20:09

Snover Offline

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Well, it won't be outputting anything that sounds like an MT-32, since all that VDMS does (at least, at the moment, *cough,Vlad,JAB*) is map the MT-32 MIDI channels to General MIDI channels. Also, all the MPU-401 emulation does is pipe commands to Windows' MIDI mixer, so it does not actually produce any audio itself (thereby eliminating any wave output that could be captured with DiskWriter). Am I making sense? I hope so. 😜

If you want to capture the MIDI audio anyway, you can just use a standard recording program (I use Cool Edit because it's just that cool 😉), select "MIDI Synth" in your recording mixer, and away you go.

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 2 of 5, by Thomas Harte

Posted on 2003-04-05, 21:58

Thomas Harte Offline

Okay, thanks. Luckily the MT to GM/GS mapping works quite well for the music of this particular game, which is all I want to capture, although the lack of waveform dumping (in the MIDI sense) stops most of the sound effects from doing what they should.

If I wanted to play about with developing an MPU-401 software emulator/synthesiser which just produced a PCM output stream at the other end, is there a way I could easily do that with VDMSound? A particular DLL I could just replace? If so, is there a development doc telling me what functions I must implement and where I want to send the output in order for it to channel through DiskWriter and whatever?

Reply 3 of 5, by Thomas Harte

Posted on 2003-04-05, 23:32

Thomas Harte Offline

Supplemental question: is it possible to log all port activity with the MPU-401?

Reply 4 of 5, by psz

Posted on 2003-04-06, 01:15

psz Offline

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Posts: 59
Joined: 2003-02-03, 02:45

Just a side note: Most Creative Labs cards have a "What U Hear" input selection in the Windows Recording Properties (From Volume Control). This allows you to use CoolEdit or Creative Wave Studio or any OTHER .wav recording program to record all sounds... MIDI, EAX effects, input from a TV card, whatever.

Reply 5 of 5, by vladr

Posted on 2003-04-06, 04:07

vladr Offline

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Location: Montréal, QC, CAN

Yes, you can use DiskWriter to write out .mid (MIDI) files.

Make sure you have at least version 1.0.4.3 (I think) of DiskWriter.dll in the VDMSound directory (right-click on the .dll, "Properties", "Version").
Open a command prompt and type (only has to be done once, to make sure everything is configured properly):
regsvr32 %VDMSPath%\DiskWriter.dll
Paste the following in the "Custom configuration" section in LaunchPad (change "Path" as desired):
```
1[SysExIndicator.depends]
2MidiOut=MidiWriter
3[MidiWriter]
4CLSID=DiskWriter.MIDIOut
5[MidiWriter.config]
6Path=C:\
```
[/list=1]
Now, every time you run the shortcut with the custom configuration above a "vdms<...>.mid" file should be created (in the directory specified by "Path" above).

Cheers,
V.

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