Windows Media Encoder SDK banner art

Toolgraph Designer

Tools are components that can be used to perform custom tasks within DirectMusic Producer or other DirectMusic applications. Tools can be used in an application if they are installed on the system running the application.

Note   For the Microsoft DirectX 8.0 release of DirectMusic Producer, no standard tools are provided. Only custom tools created by using a software development language can be used in the Toolgraph Designer. For information about creating custom tools, refer to the DirectMusic Tools topic in the DirectX 8.0 SDK documentation.

Toolgraph Designer is used to organize tools in graphs, or chains. Toolgraphs are saved as separate components (.tgr files) or embedded in segments or audiopaths. A toolgraph component does not include the tools themselves, which are stored in dynamic link libraries (DLLs) that must be installed separately and registered as DirectMusic tools.

Tools can be used to implement simple effects. However, unlike effects implemented as DMOs, tools manipulate data before it reaches the synthesizer. At this stage, data is in the form of messages. A message might contain information about a note, a continuous controller curve, lyrics, a patch or tempo change, or the playing of a wave, among other things. In fact, almost all the data produced by segment tracks passes through the performance in the form of messages.

Because tools have access to data before it is synthesized, they are especially useful for manipulating the pitch and timing of musical notes.

Most tools are tailored to intercept only certain types of messages, such as note messages. The set of PChannels from which the tool accepts messages is defined by the toolgraph. After a tool has examined and perhaps modified the data in a message, it can pass on the message or delete it. It can also create new messages. For example, a simple echo effect can be implemented by intercepting note messages and creating duplicate copies with later time stamps and decreased velocity.


© 2000-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.