QuickTime 2.5

I have taught about and made many arrangements for QT midi. I like to hear what my midi arrangements will sound like in QuickTime before putting them into applications. I had been eagerly awaiting QT 2.5 like everyone else, but when it came I found some disappointments.

• There weren't that many new voices and still not all of the total 128 GM pallette.

• The quality wasn't improved very much. (Although it is still pretty good for a software synthesizer.)

• Apple took away some of our ability to change things. (No more voice selection when converting to QT Movies from midi files.)

• QT 2.5 can't play the "QT Mus. Inst." voices from QT options during conversion so you can hear what your General Midi assignments will sound like or to try different orchestrations.

  On the plus side

• QT 2.5 gives "fair" sounding voices that will play smoothly on older slower Macs.
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• QT 2.5 has the greatest number of user options for movies of all the QT MoviePlayers (except the "Pro" versions which cost money). These options include but are not limited to "loop" and "present movie".

• Most options selected can be saved and other players will follow those instructions.

• QT MoviePlayer 2.5 works with all of the later QuickTime versions.

• When QT MoviePlayer 2.5 is installed along side 4.0 "Player", clicking on movie icons defaults to Player.

• It is possible to play QT Musical Instruments from an external keyboard, but this has to be done through a patch from either OMS or PatchBay.

• There are some fun features like the QT Karaoke. Later versions have this too. (You can look for midi karaoke files on the net then play them.)

• There is a QT settings feature in the control panels.

• If your computer is capable it will allow you to play midi files in stereo, assuming that the midi file includes "pan" (stereo placement).

Experimenting another way!

For "experimenting" with QT 2.5, 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 voices you need to download:

QT Midi Player 1.6 allows you to patch to your onboard synthesizer (Macs only) by using Apple Midi Player or OMS. This allows you to play the internal synth from the application you are working on. Many music applications never gave you a choice of using QuickTime Musical Instruments.

I've even gotten QT Midi Player to work on my iMac. Since older applications ask for a serial port (and you iMac users know there is none) this is the only way I could use a couple of my older applications; MusicShop being one of them. I set up QT Midi Player to access QuickTime. I then set up QuickTime to default to an external synth. The set up is a little tricky. Be persistent ..... I know it will work.

Arnold's Midi Player is one of my favorite tools. It allows me to mess around with midi files while using my internal synthesizer. Unfortunately Arnaud (Arnold) stopped supporting versions for 68k Macs. Then, relatively short time later, his site disappeared. (http://www.planete.net/~amasson/amp.html) What this means for us is there is no single site to download versions for PowerMacs and PCs. It is still possible to find and to pay for this wonderful shareware. If you like it (no matter where you find it) I urge you to pay for it. In the mean time I have these two applications for you to try.

These are stuffed and binhexed Arnold's Midi Players for Macs only. (Sorry PC owners.)

You might need to download Stuffit Expander, which will unbinhex and unstuff, if you don't already have it. You can download it at Aladdin

What follows are 4 documents (GIF files) showing the comparison of the General Midi pallette and the QuickTime Musical Instruments pallette with the voices the QTInsts. default to.

QuickTime Musical Instruments 2.5 Drum Kit Maps

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