Re: [fluid-dev] A new program using FluidSynth

[Josh Green]

Sounds like a neat project you are working on, and it would be really
nice to have a .NET binding for FluidSynth.  I'm working on moving the
FluidSynth web page to Trac.  This will hopefully be done within the
week.  I'll add a link (or you could also do that) when the new system
is in place.

As for the crashing problems.  Several windows users have mentioned that
there are stability/build issues with more recent versions of
FluidSynth.  I hate the thought that my contributions to FluidSynth have
actually made it worse in some regards.  It would be nice to get this
sorted out, so that you could use the most recent version.

Best regards,
        Josh


On Mon, 2007-04-16 at 14:25 -0400, Zachary Northrup wrote:
> Hello,
>  
> It says on the FluidSynth homepage to email this list with any new
> programs using FluidSynth. I've been working on a program called
> Z-Maestro which is basically like Apple Garageband for Windows. It
> offers some functionality that Garageband lacks, and lacks some
> functionality that Garageband gives, but it generally works pretty
> well. I'm going to be releasing RC1 soon, so I though you might want
> to take a look at it. My website is at http://www.z-sys.org/, and the
> product page for it is at http://www.z-sys.org/zmaestro.aspx. Like I
> said, it's for Windows, and it needs the .NET framework 2.0 to be
> installed. That's right, it is managed code running FluidSynth. In
> fact, Z-Maestro is almost completely programmed in VB.NET. I never
> thought I would get it working.
>  
> Originally, I was using the Windows MIDI functions, but then I
> obviously run into the problems of normal MIDI such as it sounding
> different on different computers. I knew I needed a synth, so I
> searched around. It took me a long time to find FluidSynth. Due to the
> complexity of FluidSynth, I couldn't just import the functions into
> managed code. So, I created a partially managed wrapper in C++. If you
> aren't familiar with Microsoft's managed C++, it basically gives you
> the compatibility of normal C++ and improvements of being managed. You
> can write classes that aren't managed, classes that are partially
> managed, and completely managed classes. I was able to import the
> FluidSynth libraries directly into the wrapper project and create a
> few managed classes for use in VB.NET. Unfortunately, I am currently
> using the original 1.0.0 FluidSynth libraries since for some reason,
> when I tried to upgrade, it kept crashing. Being that I have little
> experience in native code, it could be a simple problem. If I can get
> the wrapper working fully, I will release it as open source.
>  
> Another problem is that (mainly due to my lack of experience in native
> C++/C and the interop required between managed and native code) I
> can't figure out how some functions are used and how I can marshal
> them to managed code. The one function I am most anxious to figure out
> how to translate is the fluid_synth_write_s16 function for recording
> output. I'd like to see some simple examples of how it's used. The
> documentation only says that it fills two buffers with left and right
> audio info. Does this mean that FluidSynth is keeping a buffer
> in-memory of all audio?
>  
> Thanks for creating such a useful synth.
>  
> Zachary Northrup
> http://www.z-sys.org/
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