Designing Web Audio & CD-ROM

Using the Beatnik Editor

Now that you’ve worked with some premade content, let’s take a look at how to create your own .rmf files. The Beatnik Editor is the primary tool for creating the .rmf files native to the Beatnik Player. This tool imports standard MIDI files and facilitates access and reassignment to the players built-in sound banks and patches. In addition, digital audio samples can be imported and assigned to various key ranges of a user-defined instrument patch within the custom user bank. After the samples are mapped to MIDI note ranges, they can be triggered by MIDI note commands just like the standard samples within the Player.

The Beatnik Editor is best used in conjunction with an OMS-compatible sequencing program such as Opcode’s Vision, or Emagic’s Logic Audio. OMS (Open Music System) acts as an intermediary translator between the sequencing software and the Beatnik Editor, allowing a “live” MIDI connection to the Beatnik instruments. Unfortunately, there is a significant lag in the response time of the Beatnik instruments, which makes it nearly impossible to compose directly with the Beatnik sounds. Although this is something Beatnik hopes to address, currently the best workaround requires the use of another general MIDI instrument to perform the input tasks and then audition the finished sequence with the various channels assigned to the instruments of the Beatnik Editor.

You can do this by choosing the File → Link to Sequence command. You must launch ...