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Old 10-13-2008, 12:06 PM   #8
Jim Sachs
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Join Date: Dec 2000

Location: Southern Oregon
Posts: 9,768
Nope, it's a MIDI instrument with separate waveforms for almost every note. Recording a .WAV file for 5 1/2 minutes of music would make for an incredibly large file. But this way, the MIDI data and the instrument together are only about the size of the texture file for one fish.

For a long time I tried to create a full orchestral version of the Canon, but whenever I got one which sounded good on my Soundblaster Audigy card, it would sound terrible on other machines. This is because a MIDI file is at the mercy of whatever instrument waveforms are packaged with that card or machine. So I needed to package my own waveforms with the file, but soon found out that with so much cheap RAM available these days, no one seems to care that these instruments are HUGE.

So, I scaled back to a single high-quality quitar sound for the default music. Even Cliff doesn't seem to mind it, and he's the world's toughest critic with anything musical. Anyone wishing a full-orchestral version of the Canon can simply download an MP3 file and use that in their Playlist.
Jim Sachs
Creator of SereneScreen Aquarium
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