Having now had a few days to play with QT 5, I find my enthusiasm is
somewhat dimmed.
Firstly, the way that Apple has implemented SoundFonts means that when
you install them, they appear as additional synthesisers. Instruments
share the same instrument numbers as the existing ones, so when you
install them in BarFly you find that both the new and old instruments
get a check mark, and whichever you select you get the old one.
Making a new instrument the default synth using the QT Control panel
ought to fix this, but it doesn't. I can (and already have) worked
around this in my code, and I will shortly be releasing an updated
version of BarFly.
Worse, it seems that there is a bug in QT Music which means that it
no longer recognises fractional pitches. If you use any intonation
other than equal temperament, all the notes which should be just a
tad flat get rounded down by a semitone, with predictably amusing
results.
So, If you need to use intonations don't install QT 5. In fact,
BarFly users should not install QT 5 unless you are desperate to
use some of it's other new features. Wait for version 5.1.
Phil Taylor
I wrote:
>The final release version of Quicktime 5 is now available from Apple.
>All the bugs which were present in the three previous beta versions
>seem to have been fixed, and there are a couple of nice new features.
>The instrument picker dialog (which is what you get when you tell
>BarFly to add an instrument to the instrument menu) is now better
>laid out, with the Roland GS instruments on the same category menus
>as the General Midi set, and QT5 now supports SoundFonts.
>
>SoundFonts have been around on the PC for a while and there are
>lots of them available on the net. You can add new instruments by
>downloading them (in soundfont2 format) and placing the files in
>the Quicktime Preferences folder. One problem at the moment is
>that soundfonts (which are huge) are normally distributed compressed
>in one of two formats, .sfpack or .sfArk. I haven't yet been able
>to locate a Mac program which will decompress these, although the
>suppliers of the freeware SFPack program, Megota Software
><http://www.megota.com/>
>say that they are working on both Mac and Linux versions. In the
>mean time you will need access to a PC unpack them.
>
>A couple of disadvantages with QT5 are that the secret sound editor
>in QT Player Pro has been removed, and if you have paid for the
>Pro version your serial number won't work, and you'll have to shell
>out another $30. This only applies to the Quicktime Player though,
>BarFly doesn't need the paid-for version.
>
>Get it from:
>
>http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/index.html
>
>Note that the standalone version requires Stuffit Expander version 6
>to unpack it; you can get that from:
>
>http://www.aladdinsys.com
>
>Phil Taylor
>
>
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