corfmanr@gtephx.UUCP (Russ Corfman) (02/13/91)
I want to start writing some windows applications that
make use of the speaker. I'm planning on starting off
with something simple like a cuckoo clock/alarm clock.
I've read what is in the reference manual for all the
music/sound functions such as SetVoiceNote, SetVoicePitch,
OpenSound, etc. I am left with a number of questions.
1. How does windows allocate the sound resource? I know
that there is only one speaker so I assume only one
application can be using it at a time. How does that
application reserve the speaker? How does the application
know if the speaker is already being used?
2. Voice queues are used to place different notes and
frequencies and such in. In one of the function
descripions in the reference manual, it said the
first queue is queue "1". How many voice queues can
there be? Is it unlimited? Another question, are the
queues a system wide resource such as timers or
are they just a single application's resource?
3. I could more or less follow what the documentation
meant for (how to use) functions such as SetVoiceNote
and SetVoicePitch, but I was lost on how to use
SetVoiceFrequency. Is there an easy way to figure
out how the passed frequencies affect the sound? I
guess a table of what frequencies to use for common
sounds such as sirens or bubbling water would be nice.
Something to point me in the right direction.
4. The "Guide to Programming" and "Programming Windows"
by Petzold have no mention or examples of making sounds.
Does anybody know of a book or article that discusses
this topic? Some example source code would be very
helpful too.
Thanks,
--
Russell Corfman
AG Communication Systems; Phoenix, AZ
UUCP: ...!{ncar!noao!asuvax | uunet!zardoz!hrc}!gtephx!corfmanr
Internet: gtephx!corfmanr@asuvax.eas.asu.edu
(602) 581-4403bcw@rti.rti.org (Bruce Wright) (02/14/91)
In article <199@maillot_.gtephx.UUCP>, corfmanr@gtephx.UUCP (Russ Corfman) writes: > I want to start writing some windows applications that > make use of the speaker. I'm planning on starting off > with something simple like a cuckoo clock/alarm clock. > I've read what is in the reference manual for all the > music/sound functions such as SetVoiceNote, SetVoicePitch, > OpenSound, etc. I am left with a number of questions. > > 1. How does windows allocate the sound resource? I know > that there is only one speaker so I assume only one > application can be using it at a time. How does that > application reserve the speaker? How does the application > know if the speaker is already being used? Windows allocates the sound resource to the first progam to do OpenSound (). Be sure to release the resource with CloseSound () when you're through with it! Only one application can use the sound at a time - if it's already in use, you get an S_SERDVNA error return from OpenSound (). > 2. Voice queues are used to place different notes and > frequencies and such in. In one of the function > descripions in the reference manual, it said the > first queue is queue "1". How many voice queues can > there be? Is it unlimited? Another question, are the > queues a system wide resource such as timers or > are they just a single application's resource? The number of voice queues is hardware-dependent. For a standard PC-type machine without any add-on hardware, there's only one voice queue - because there is only one clock available to send output to the speaker (the issue is the number of oscillators availble, not the number of speakers). Since the number of voices is (largely) determined by the hardware, the number of queues is a system-wide resource. > 3. I could more or less follow what the documentation > meant for (how to use) functions such as SetVoiceNote > and SetVoicePitch, but I was lost on how to use > SetVoiceFrequency. Is there an easy way to figure > out how the passed frequencies affect the sound? I > guess a table of what frequencies to use for common > sounds such as sirens or bubbling water would be nice. > Something to point me in the right direction. I assume you mean SetVoiceAccent and SetVoiceSound instead of SetVoicePitch and SetVoiceFrequency. The frequencies of common notes are: A3 220.00 A#3 233.08 B3 246.94 C4 261.63 <- C below "middle C" C#4 277.18 D4 293.66 D#4 311.13 E4 329.63 F4 349.23 F#4 369.99 G4 392.00 G#4 415.30 A4 440.00 A#4 466.16 B4 493.88 C5 523.25 <- "middle C" C#5 554.37 D5 587.33 D#5 622.25 E5 659.26 F5 698.46 F#5 739.99 G5 783.99 G#5 830.61 A5 880.00 A#5 932.33 B5 987.77 C6 1046.50 <- C above "middle C" ...etc Note that for each note (assuming I typed the numbers in right), the frequency is exactly twice that for the corresponding note of the octave below. This should allow you to extend the scale in both directions if you need to. Sirens are pretty easy by programming a "glissando" up and down the scale (a lot of short notes going through all the frequencies [not just the above-named frequencies] between two baseline notes - the timing of the glissando and the choice of endpoint notes can simulate a number of different types of sirens). Bubbles are harder - I don't have anything specific offhand to simulate them, but they should be possible to do by a similar technique, ending with a hard "stop". It wouldn't hurt to experiment if you want to produce special effects. SetVoiceAccent seems to have bugs on Windows 3.0. It seemed to work OK on Windows 2.11, but apparently something broke in 3.0 and accents don't work properly. The nTempo and nMode parameters to SetVoiceAccent no longer seem to have any effect (especially bad in the case of nMode since the workaround is particularly ugly). The nPitch paramter still seems to work OK. Note that nVolume is ignored for most PC's - the standard PC architecture has no way to control the volume of the speaker. > 4. The "Guide to Programming" and "Programming Windows" > by Petzold have no mention or examples of making sounds. > Does anybody know of a book or article that discusses > this topic? Some example source code would be very > helpful too. Sorry, I don't know any books on how to use the sound functions under Windows. They aren't really too hard to use (except for the bugs in SetVoiceAccent). I might be able to mail or post the source to a "fun" program that my wife and I have played around with (Program displays a Christmas scene and plays Christmas carols - an adaptation of a well-known Basic version with enhancements for Windows). We never really have gotten it to the point of being happy with it, and the source is a bit big (probably not written as small as possible since it has grown by accretion over several Christmas seasons), so I've never posted the program or the source. I'd have to see how my wife would feel about it, and I'm also not sure that the net would appreciate the volume (source is about 60k un-ZIPed). The sound portion is really a very small part of the code though. Good luck - Bruce C. Wright
strobl@gmdzi.gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) (02/15/91)
bcw@rti.rti.org (Bruce Wright) writes: >In article <199@maillot_.gtephx.UUCP>, corfmanr@gtephx.UUCP (Russ Corfman) writes: >> I want to start writing some windows applications that >> make use of the speaker. [...] >Sorry, I don't know any books on how to use the sound functions >under Windows. [...] The Microsoft Programmers Library version 1.1 on CDROM has two sample programs for sound, in the Windows area. More than nothing, but not very impressive. A question: is there an newer version of the Programmers Library? The above version is from '89 and is about Windows 2.11, so it is not very usefull, anymore. Wolfgang Strobl #include <std.disclaimer.hpp>