PsiMIDI

==================== P s i M I D I 1.00 ==================== Copyright 2003 Sebastian Mate Welcome! -------- PsiMIDI is the first and only one, real MIDI player for Psion computers! It allows you to carry your favourite MIDI files with you in your pocket. Although PsiMIDI supports MPU401, it is not designed "for stage" or other professional usage. It's rather meant to play ringtone-like MIDI files you can share with people who own a new cellphone. However, try it and make up your own opinion. Key features: * full MIDI format 0 compatibility * displays lyrics * supports MPU401!!! * highly customisable * simple psychoaccoustics to give best playback quality in monophony Supported devices: Psion 5mx, 5mx Pro Psion Revo and Revo Plus The netBook is not fully supported since PsiMIDI is designed to run on 36 Mhz (because of special timing). Disclaimer & License -------------------- PsiMIDI is free software for non-profit use. It may be copied to friends as a complete package and may be uploaded to other websites and distributed without changing any files. You use this software on your own risc; I cannot be made responsible for any damage: the program may crash and you would have to soft-reset the Psion computer. This would mean that all your opened files are lost. So be careful! The included MIDI files might be copyrighted, but they are available on the internet for everyone. Please inform me if I abuse any rights, etc. Installing PsiMIDI ------------------ Just install PsiMIDI.sis and MUSIC.sis. You can also copy the MIDI files from MIDIs.zip to C:\MIDIs on your machine. Some of them sound really good! Using PsiMIDI ------------- PsiMIDI is to be used as a normal EPOC5 application. Open it by clicking on the PsiMIDI-icon in your "Extras"-bar. Press the menu-button to open a MIDI file. The menu can not be accessed while a file is playing. However, you do have control the playback: While playing, press "1...9" to select the current channel "0" to play all channels "o" and "p" to switch the channel ESC to stop the playback After pressing ESC, you can select a new file. Options ------- Select Menu->Options->Settings to customise the program: * Volume: Select the playback volume * Play channel: Select the channel you want to play. This is useful if a file is very large and plays a lot of sounds at the same time. You can select the channel while playing in order to "search" the "melody". See "Using PsiMIDI". * Simulate polyphony: PsiMIDI uses special algorithms to find out which tunes should be played in order to work with the monophony. You can bypass this by enabling this option. However, timing will be very inaccurate. * Use sound decay: If you use MUSIC.OPX as device, select this option to produce a piano-like sound. However, PsiMIDI will produce noise with this option enabled! * Simulate drumset: Enable it to produce sounds similar to clicks. Don't use it if your MIDI file uses large drum patterns (as they normally do!). * Enable screen: Disable it in order to improve timing! Devices ------- Select Menu->Options->Device to select the sound output device: MUSIC.OPX: This is the default with the best quality. Use this one! Psion BEEP: Use this if MUSIC.OPX is not installed or does not work (WINS) MPU401 over PsiBridge: This is used to send the MIDI data to an other MIDI-device. See MPU401! MPU401 ------ PsiMIDI supports MPU401. However, a Psion cannot be connected directly to a MIDI device since MIDI uses a non standard baudrate which cannot be set on a Psion. You need a PC with a soundcard supported by DOS (MPU401 interface!) in between. This PC can be a really old one (a 486 should be enough!) with a soundcard. This PC must run PsiBridge, a small DOS program I wrote. Put PsiBridge with the soundcard driver on a bootable DOS-floppy, so you don't need a harddrive. You don't even need a monitor nor a keyboard if everything is working! PsiMIDI supports PsiBridge 1.00 and later. Use Menu->MPU401->Options to select the MPU401 port for the soundcard and the speed. The default is 115200 but if your PCs doesn't support it, select an other one. Connect your Psion to the PC's COM Port 1 and start PsiBridge. You can use the "Test PsiBridge" to check if it's working. It will display text on the PC screen. If it is not working, PsiMIDI crashes. You might need to reset the Psion if you cannot close the application. Try Start5, it sometimes works. For additional information please read the PsiBridge documentation! FAQ --- F: Can I play MIDI files in format 1 or 2? A: No, this is not possible. Please convert these files to format 0! F: How can I convert the MIDI format 1 and 2 files to format 0? A: There are many tools. I use "Magix Music Painter" for that. There is one at http://www.borg.com/~jglatt/progs/software.htm (untested). You can even try to find one that runs under DOS; it's maybe possible to run it under XTM then. F: Where can I find MIDI files? A: Everywhere in the Internet. Just search. You can find whole collections with several thousand files - but be carefull not to break any copyrights. A good start are also p2p-networks like eMule (www.emule-project.net). F: How can I exchange MIDI files with cellphones? A: If the cellphone has an ir-port you can try the Psion program plBeam (shareware) to exchange MIDI files. It works excellent with newer Siemens cellphones! F: Will there ever be software wavetable or polyphony support? A: Possible, but I have no plans to implement it. This would require much processing power the Psion was not built for. You can try my "RealMIDI" (http://www.realmidi.de.vu), a DOS MIDI file player. It supports FM-Synthesis, MPU401, Software WAVE-out and even lyrics-to-speech! Try it! F: Will there ever be format 1 support? A: No. Sorry ;-) Thanks ... ---------- Special thanks to the great people at http://www.psionwelt.de, especially Lutz Wohlfarth and Ralph Sprenger. They helped me with OPL since this is my first application for EPOC. And: Thanks to all users! I'm really proud if anyone uses my software ;-) Contact ------- Please feel free to contact me. I really appreciate your feedback! e-mail: sebmate@arcor.de internet: www.psimidi.de.vu