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Downloadable Sounds (DLS)
An important problem developed in the early days of wavetable synthesizers over identifying the voices. The synthesizer that the composer used might number the voices one way, while the one that the consumer used numbered them a different way. Needless to say, the performance would be quite different from what the composer originally intended! The solution was to agree to a standard palette of sounds with consistent numbering. This palette is known as “General MIDI” or GM for short. GM specifies 128 musical sounds and 47 percussive ones, and voice #1 is Acoustic Grand Piano on every synthesizer. GM went a long way to creating a more uniform musical experience across a wide range of commercial synthesizers.
Unfortunately, GM didn’t quite achieve the acme of uniformity because each synthesizer manufacturer “interpreted” each voice in a slightly different way. Voice #1 is always Acoustic Grand Piano, but each manufacturer recorded snippets of different pianos and processed them in different ways, making each rendition sound a little different. This non-uniformity provoked a revolt among games developers because they want the sounds that come out when users play their games to be consistent across platforms.
There is now a solution to this problem. The DirectMusic API from Microsoft provides support for sounds that the games developers can download to the wavetable synthesizer. Thus, the developer can be assured that the Acoustic Grand Piano will sound almost exactly the same on every platform because it will be based on the same sample – one that the developer provided himself. DirectMusic will also make it possible for developers to use the wavetable synthesizer to support sound effects as well as the musical accompaniment. For example, the game could download the sound of a laser blast once and then trigger it numerous times using MIDI commands. Or better yet, it could download the engine drone of a race car and then pitch shift it in the synthesizer as the car accelerates or decelerates. Thus, DirectMusic not only makes wavetable synthesis more palatable for creating the musical accompaniment, it also provides a new range of opportunities for creating and controlling sounds in a PC.