Extras
On this page: Intro - Adding other sound formats to FTS - Csound - Virtual Midi Cable - The MFX plug in - Transfer to another computer
Intro
Tuning enthusiasts who use both SCALA and FTS together may like to look at the instructions for setting up FTS to work with SCALA. Then come back here.
FTS as downloaded can already record or open mp3s and uncompressed waveform audio.
If you are likely to want to record or open Ogg files (replacement for mp3s that many composers prefer) or the Sun AU format (needed for java applets) or other sound formats, you can get an installer to add those in - not included to reduce the download size. See Adding other sound formats to FTS.
If you want to transfer FTS to an old computer not connected to the internet using floppies, see Transfer to another computer
Those who have cakewalk or Sonar you may be interested in the MFX plug in.
Composers and who want to use Tune Smithy to retune their compositions played in music notation software will need to get a Virtual Midi Cable.
You may also need a Virtual Midi Cable for soft synths that don't add themselves to the Out menu.
If new to CSound, and interested in using Tune Smithy with CSound, you may want to get the minimal CSound installer for tune smithy to get you started - see Csound.
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Adding Ogg, Au and other sound formats to FTS
FTS as downloaded can already record or open mp3s and uncompressed waveform audio.
If you are likely to want to use Tune Smithy to record or open audio files in other sound formats such as Ogg or Au, or wish to update its Mp3 support, you can use this installer:
fts_sound_encoders_setup.exe [1 MB]
Just download it and run it to add them in. It installs the relevant encoders and decoders into the current Tune Smithy install folder, so FTS can easily find them.
To find the sound formats in Tune Smithy after the download, go to the Record to File window (Ctrl + 11) and choose from the Recording Type drop list.
You will also be able to open audio files in these formats into FTS's temporary recording to RAM window from File | Open | Temp. Rec. - Show all audio (*.WAV etc).
This installer adds support for Ogg files (replacement for mp3s that many composers prefer) and the Sun AU format (needed for java applets) amongst others. It also includes the most up to date version of Lame (which for some reason is nearly three times the size of the slightly older one that comes with the program).
Techy users may want to read the Encoders page - which tells you more about the actual encoders used, and gives information about where you can check to see if more recent versions are available.
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If you want to use the CSound instruments with Tune Smithy you need to install CSound. If you don't have it yet, you can just install a minimal version for FTS which is enough to get you started - has everything you need to run CSound from within FTS. You may also want to get CSoundAV to play the instruments in real time.
See the Minimal CSound Installer for FTS page to download the installer and find out about CSoundAV.
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You need one of these if your intention is to use FTS to retune notes played in another program, for instance your music notation software or sequencer. It is also often needed if you want to play notes from FTS directly through another soft synth or sampler.
Introduction
A virtual cable is much better than a real physical cable as it transmits midi messages from one program to another at a far faster rate than is permitted with the midi cable protocols. Otherwise it functions in much the same way.
Once installed, you find new entries in the lists of Midi Out and In devices for all your midi programs - you can then choose one of these for output in your music notation software, and for input in FTS - and then it is as if you had connected the Out of the music notation software to the In of FTS with a midi cable - except it is a virtual midi cable, entirely done through software. It is a clever idea, and works very well.
Similarly you can connect the Out of FTS to the In of your soft synth or sampler.
The first virtual midi cable was Hubi's loopback - but unless you have a very old setup - it is long superceded now.
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Get them
For Windows 95/98/ME use Maple Midi Tools, or Midi Yoke. Maple Midi Tool has an installer - just run it. For Midi Yoke - particularly if you have Windows 98 then you may find it helpful to check out their pictorial install instructions. If you follow the instructions as described, there is nothing to go wrong.
For XP, use Loopbe1 , or Maple Midi Tools. Both are excellent and easy to install. You only get one device with the free Loopbe1, but if you purchase their Loopbe30 you can add up to 30 devices. Techy users can also add extra devices for Maple Midi Tools by editing the registry - and you can give them whatever names you like.
An alternative for XP, if you don't use Giga. Midi Yoke NT is otherwise excellent for XP. It's installation is dead easy on XP too. But the download page is a bit confusing (as of writing). The natural thing is to click on the Installation: Windows XP link.
Instead, what you should do for XP - on the Midi Yoke page click on the Download link, and then download MidiYokeSetup.msi . This is a completely automated installer. Then as it recommends, you can ignore all the instructions later on down the page for manual installation of Midi Yoke NT on XP as they no longer apply when you do it this way.
Don't install Midi Yoke NT on XP if you have Giga on the same computer, as the two programs are incompatible. Unfortunately the incompatibility shows up just if Midi Yoke NT is installed, and not even in use for relaying. If you do install Giga, you need to uninstall Midi Yoke NT first from Add / Remove programs. What usually happens if you try to run Giga on a computer with Midi Yoke NT installed is that Giga will run extremely slowly, normally too slowly to be usable.
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Windows logo testing
If you get a message about Windows logo testing when you run the installers for any of these programs, just say yes it is fine, go ahead. The logo testing is mainly relevant for commercially produced programs by the largest companies.
The yearly fees for this are very high, understandably so actually because of all the testing and verifying the logo signing companies have to do. However it means that the smaller companies and authors of free programs never apply for it however good their software is.
Often as a user, one already knows that the software is fine without logo testing. Often there is a large community of users who use them and no-one has reported any problems with them. That is the situation with these virtual cables, which are widely used with music software, and widely recommended.
The only known issues with any of these virtual cables (as far as I know anyway - and no FTS users have reported any other ones to me either) are the ones about Giga + Midi Yoke on NT - and a very minor error message that can come up during the install of Maple Virtual Cable, which you can safely ignore. See the Issues and trouble shooting for more information.
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Issues and trouble shooting
Midi Yoke NT and Giga incompatibility on XP
There is a well known incompatibility between the XP beta of Midi Yoke and Giga, which has proved to be impossible for the Midi Yoke programmer to do anything about. It only applies to XP users of those programs who try to install both of them - you should only install one or the other. If you just have Midi Yoke installed on XP, not even running, Giga tends to freeze, or run very very slowly. That's the only problem I've seen mentioned anywhere or had reported by any FTS users.
If this has happened to you, you can remove Midi Yoke from Add / Remove programs. The older versions of Midi Yoke for XP, if you happen to have one of them, need to be removed in another way - you go to Start | Settings | Control Panel | Sound & Audio Devices | Hardware - then click on one of the Midi Yoke Junction devices and click Properties | Remove and it will be gone.
Maple Virtual Cable error message
You may get this error message when installing Maple Virtual Midi cable: "Warning: The midi driver will not start because there is no free space for midi entries in the windows registry. The driver has detected a duplicate midi entry in the registry (midi1-wdmaud.drv) which it should be able to harmlessly remove...".
It should be fine to continue and let it do it, if this happens to you. It seems it is just a case of Windows being a bit eccentric and creating unnecessary duplicate entries in the registry as a result of the user reinstalling soundcard drivers etc, or plugging a USB device into different USB slots. For details:
http://www.rme-audio.de/english/faq/10entrye.htm
If you get this message and want to be ultra careful, you may wish to set a system restore point - or export a copy of your registry - before you install Maple Virtual Cable on the very very remote possibility that you want to restore the registry to roll back after the change.
Sometimes users aren't sure how to uninstall Maple Virtual Cable - if you have a long list of programs in Control Panel | Add or Remove Programs. Look for the Hurchalla entry there, and you should find it.
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This is for users of Sonar. It may also work with Cakewalk and Cubase SX, but not tested for those.
What it does is let you insert FTS as a midi effect. The aim is to use FTS to retune your plug in DXI synths, which you may feel is best done using an MFX plug in.
For most situations you are probably better off using FTS directly - and relay midi notes through it using a virtual midi cable. FTS is far more fully featured when used in this way, and is also more thoroughly tested for this use.
Note that most of these DXI or VST synths are monotimbral which means that in effect they can only play on one channel at a time. When you apply a pitch bend to one of these synths, it retunes all the notes in play. This means that the plug in is usually most useful for monophonic microtonal lines. However, if you synth is multi-timbral then you can use this method to play polyphonic music in any tuning too. Another way to get pitch polyphony may be to install several copies of the synth, with one copy associated with each channel in Sonar.
You can install / uninstall it from within FTS as well, from In | Options | More Options - what this does is to register it in the lists of MFX plug ins. The plug in itself is a tiny file which resides in your Fractal Tune Smithy folder, and it gets placed there anyway when you install FTS whether you select it or not.
The way it works is that you need to start FTS up as a separate program - but if it isn't running yet the plug in will offer to start it up. You select the tuning you want to use in FTS. All the notes played in Sonar get sent from the mfx plug in Sonar to FTS directly via shared memory, then they get retuned as desired and returned to Sonar. This happens "instantly" since the data goes directly from Sonar to FTS via shared memory so there is no appreciable timing overhead involved - less even than occurs in Midi Relaying (Midi In) from one program to another on the same computer.
You can play from your music keyboard in this way, or you can use FTS as a midi effect to retune a track in your Sonar project. The plug in comes with help explaining how to use it, which goes into all the details you need. FTS has an option to run always on top, so you can place it in front of Sonar when working on your project, for more convenience, then place it behind again when finished with it
Cubase users of the MFX plug in should see Tips and tricks: using Cakewalk Midi plug ins with Cubase
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This is something you may need to do on rare occasions. Usually it's because the other computer hasn't got internet connection.
The easiest way to do this is to put the installer onto a USB drive, or CD and then run the installer from the USB drive or CD to install the program on the other computer.
If you have an old computer with a floppy drive, and for whatever reason, can't use those methods, you can transfer it in pieces on floppies.
The installer is too large to fit on a 1.44 MB floppy. Even if I were to reduce it to its minimum by making a separate installer with just the .exe file, that too would be too large. However you can transfer it on floppies if you split it into pieces first. Copy all the pieces onto floppies then place them into the same folder in the new computer. Then combine them together to remake the installer on the new computer, and run it as usual. Also as usual you can then delete the installer once it is all done.
An easy way to do this is to use the free file splitter utilities available. You can find a good one on-line here:
The File Splitter
Or search for "File Splitter" in google to find other utilities that do the same thing.
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