What should the tech be for playing / editing .tbt files?

[bostick]

I would like to have a full-fledged player and editor for TabIt files, since TabIt itself has been abandoned.

This would be a great opportunity to provide TabIt for other desktops (Mac and Linux), web, and mobile.

The parser and converter are currently written in C++, but any of the UI tech does not necessarily have to be C++.

There are pros and cons for everything and maybe we can have a discussion here about ideas.

[bostick]

@colinwilliams91

[colinwilliams91]

So, my knowledge and expertise are somewhat narrow/limited but one good tool I am familiar with that is pretty robust/flexible would be Unity.

We can design (still might want to prototype with a different tool) and develop the UI with it and it leverages C#. It is a full game engine so it extends a lot of build capabilities (basically automatically):

• Build to an executable for Win, Mac, Linux, Mobile
• Build to WebGL to serve from a webserver
• Unity is Free (there might be a caveat for cases where a lot of products are sold..)
• Unity UI are highly customizable and easy to script with

I would imagine it should have no problem with C++ too. The typical workflow is to use their tool in parallel with Visual Studio.

Is the goal for editing to be like Tabit where users can create songs/files in a similar way? Or are you envisioning more for editing existing files? (more so focused around the post-song writing/exporting stage)

[colinwilliams91]

@bostick Let me know if any of this sounds helpful. I'd have a quicker jump off point with these techs but I'd be down for anything. The only tradeoff on my end would be time and perhaps asking you more questions if we use something a little lower down, closer to C++ 😅.

I don't wanna write anything off based on my exp. since I have so little. There could very well be easier ways to make executables with simple UI.

Did you have anything in mind yet?

[colinwilliams91]

I tagged you in a reddit thread where there is some buzz from a couple of devs as well as mention of financial support, just in case any of that is of interest 😊

[bostick]

I am envisioning editing existing files and also creating new ones. No reason not to do both!

Unity sounds just fine. I have developed Unity in the past, though it has been a while: https://bostick.github.io/blog/2021/11/force-pinvoke/

I'm sure integrating with the existing C++ would be no problem.

My number one concern with any new UI is smooth editing and playback. Looking at TabIt, people might think that it is simply a grid of text characters, but the subtle spacing needed for Alternate Time Regions and other features means that it is more of a canvas for 2D graphics. And playback scrolling should be close to pixel-perfect.

Editing should be first-class on desktop and web (where there are keyboards), but still possible on mobile.

And then playback would be done by converting to MIDI and using FluidSynth (https://www.fluidsynth.org/) or something like TiMidity++ (https://sourceforge.net/projects/timidity/).

[colinwilliams91]

@bostick very cool!

Thanks for the rundown. I will look into these tonight. (At VueConf.us next couple days)

[colinwilliams91]

@bostick I read your blog and yeah the current Unity is super convenient for multiple OS/mobile/etc.

Also, admittedly, read more about FluidSynth since it was on GitHub than TiMidity++ but I think either one sounds solid. Good finds!

I hadn't thought about that ctrl + w alternate time region feature and the spacing on the canvas. That probably is a bit on the sophisticated side. Fortunately, there are a lot of tools for UI Elements/Canvas in Unity as well.

Todo:

• If you have any suggestions on what you would like me to begin with, I'm all ears.
• If not, maybe in the next week or so I will try to spin up a simple Unity project leveraging FluidSynth and making an extremely simple UI; just with a button that will play a sound or something.

Options:

• JSFXR - JS sound synthesizer
  • Can serialize sounds (possibly to interact with wave-table like FluidSynth?) to JSON or generate sound inside JS codebase
• I think the sound synthesis tools you found are better than this one, but this is another option (that I have used)
• ...if for some reason we would want to go the web and javascript/typescript route

[bostick]

I have a working MIDI converter, so I have been relying on software synth like FluidSynth for then doing MIDI -> actual sound. It is straightforward to give FluidSynth a .mid file and it does a great job at tempo changes, handling multiple tracks, pitch bending, etc. And with FluidSynth, it becomes possible to use different SoundFonts (the gm.sf2 SoundFont that came installed on Windows machines is good for nostalgia, but maybe not for making good sounds).

A good first step would be wiring up FluidSynth to play a .mid file (say, https://github.com/bostick/tabit-file-format/blob/main/description/twinkle.mid).

[bostick]

I have been thinking about how to have a UI that is similar to TabIt, where it appears to be a grid of characters that you can navigate.

A pure grid of single-digit 16th notes that you can navigate with keyboard arrow keys would be a good first step.

Then, allowing notes on the 10th fret and above, they need to be printed nicely.

Then, bringing in features like effects (e.g. you add a harmonic that changes a 12 to <12>) and Alternate Time Regions (where 3 notes fit in the space of 2).

I have been thinking about how to add a basic tablature export feature and have been thinking about these things as well.

[bostick]

After playing a .mid file is working, a next step would be to use tbt-converter to convert a .mid from a .tbt file, then play that.

Lots of things probably need to be made nicer in all of my code for this to work and to be easy, but I'm here and want to get something working.

[peteroupc]

As for MIDI file playback, I think the feature should support:

• Software synthesis of MIDI data stored in standard MIDI files (SMF, .mid), using instrument sound banks in SoundFont 2 (.sf2), downloadable sounds (.dls), and in OPL2, OPL3, and other FM synthesis sound banks, and possibly also in Timidity++ patch format (.cfg). (The source code in libADLMIDI, libOPNMIDI, and OPL3BankEditor may be useful here, but review the licenses for these projects.)
• Popular loop-point conventions found in MIDI files (see also libsdl-org/SDL_mixer#101).
• Seeking of MIDI files such that a pause and resume function can be offered by a media player.

I note that getting even FluidSynth to support all these things might not be trivial (see also FluidSynth/fluidsynth#1275).

Just as an aside, a public-domain music synthesis library and instrument banks would greatly help improve MIDI playback support across the open-source ecosystem; however, I don't insist on that.