Re: [fluid-dev] Non-Real-Time Rendering

[Josh Green]

Hallo Zachary,

The capability is definitely there to do this with FluidSynth as a
shared library, but the command line interface lacks a real interface to
it.  Currently there is raw audio output for rendering to a file, but I
believe it still writes the output in real time (actually now that I
think about it, I could be totally wrong!  If someone is using the
FluidSynth command line to render MIDI audio in faster-than-realtime do
let me know ;)

Anyways, my assumption was, that the FluidSynth command line is
currently lacking in this regard, it would be a matter of adding support
to the command line interface.

Best regards,
        Josh Green

On Thu, 2007-04-26 at 17:51 -0400, Zachary Northrup wrote:
> I just noticed that on the "Future of Fluidsynth" page, it lists
> non-real-time rendering as feature. Um, I am currently using
> Fluidsynth for this very task in my program, Z-Maestro (you can find
> it on the FluidSynth applications page). Has this never been done
> before, or am I misreading it? I can render a complete 30 second
> project in roughly 2-5 seconds give or take depending on sample rate,
> complexity of the song, and a few other things.
>  
> Since I'm doing it all in managed VB.NET, the code sample will
> probably be almost useless, but I'll explain what I do as well. First,
> I take the music project and process it, compiling a list of all MIDI
> events for every channel. I sort the list of MIDI events by position
> to put them in chronological order. Then, I have a function that loops
> from the beginning of the project to a point measured in audio
> samples. Since the smallest increment of an event position is a 16th
> note, I loop from the first 16th note to the last one inside the audio
> sample range. For each 16th note, I send any events that exist at that
> position and then I call fluid_synth_write_s16 (which is called
> FillBuffer in my program) sending in the length, in audio samples, of
> a 16th note for the length of the buffer. Finally, I simply append the
> result to my main buffer.
>  
> The final code in my program looks like this:
>  
>         Protected Function RenderMIDI(ByVal length As Integer) As
> Short()
>             Dim instBuff As New ArrayList
>             Dim hasSampled As Boolean = False
>             Dim lastSamplePos As Integer
>             For i As Integer = _currentSamplePos To (_currentSamplePos
> + length - 1)
>                 If (i / _samplesPerMeasure) Mod (1 / 16) = 0 Then
>                     If hasSampled Then
> 
> instBuff.AddRange(inst.Synthesizer.FillBuffer((1 / 16) *
> _samplesPerMeasure))
>                         SendEventsAtPos(i / _samplesPerMeasure)
>                     Else
> 
> instBuff.AddRange(inst.Synthesizer.FillBuffer(i - _currentSamplePos))
>                         SendEventsAtPos(i / _samplesPerMeasure)
>                     End If
>                     hasSampled = True
>                     lastSamplePos = i
>                 End If
>             Next
> 
> instBuff.AddRange(inst.Synthesizer.FillBuffer(_currentSamplePos +
> length - lastSamplePos))
>             Dim instBuffArr(instBuff.Count - 1) As Short
>             instBuff.CopyTo(instBuffArr)
>             Return instBuffArr
>         End Function
>  
> "inst.Synthesizer" is a managed wrapper class for a FluidSynth
> synthesizer. "_currentSamplePos" is the starting sample to use.
> "_samplesPerMeasure" is a precalculated value containing literally the
> number of audio samples per measure based on the temp, sample rate,
> etc. The "AddRange" function simply appends an array to the
> "ArrayList". The "SendEventsAtPos" method simply sends any MIDI events
> existing at the specified position to the synthesizer.
>  
> Once again, if this is new, please tell me (and feel free to ask about
> the algorithm). By the way, I'm using version 1.0.0 of FluidSynth due
> to some upgrading issues, if that makes any difference.
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