Drums++

News

January 25, 2005: Version 0.95 released. I added the ability to select midi channels. In version 0.94 and below, Drums++ used only midi channel 9 (which was the drum sounds naturally). In version 0.95 and above you have the option to use other midi channels allowing you to use other instruments (pianos, guitars, etc).

April 9, 2004: Version 0.94 released. I made some minor changes to the code. The default volume for midi apears to be 127 (my drum machine ignores anything that is said to hit harder than 127) so I modified the code to not allow anything higher than 127 and give a warning. I also had another bug with the include files, (which is not fixed in version 0.93). Binaries for 0.94 for Windows and MacOSX will follow soon when I get a chance to make them.

I also put out MacOSX binaries. I'm actually not sure how to do hardware midi out on MacOSX, but I know it can at least make .mid files that can be played on Quicktime. If you need binaries just ask. I have no idea what operating system people will need binaries for, so I'm not making them unless they are requested.

April 8, 2004: Version 0.92 released. This version fixes bugs in include files and the .mid files so they can play on MacOSX's Quicktime player. I must say, I am extremely impressed with the drum samples on the Quicktime player. Unlike Windows Media player and kmidi, they actually sound like drums.. I mean sure you can download new drum samples or buy them, but these were the stock samples that came with MacOSX. Once again Apple has succeeded in impressing me... and to think 5 years ago I hated Apple :).

September 3, 2003: Version 0.91 released. This version adds the ability to use "include" files. The Windows version is now has timing issues fixed. The Windows version can also do real time output to a software MIDI device.

September 1, 2003: Version 0.90 released. I replaced the CPU in my Windows box so I was able to develop again on it :). It works on Windows now. Only exception is, the BPM is a little slower on Windows (which was originally a problem on the Linux version too). I will fix this in the next couple days.

August 31, 2003: Version 0.89 released. I fixed the timings on real time MIDI hardware playing. I've also added features so that patterns and sections can be repeated in play: sections. For example you can now do: play: 4a, 5 b, 5c; and that would play pattern or section a 4 times, pattern or section b 5 times, and then pattern or section c 5 times. Also I added the ability to have "local variables". That is, you can use set bmp= or set timesignature= in the pattern sections and they will only apply within that pattern block. I also started working on the Windows MIDI hardware part, but my Win98 box kept crashing while I was compiling and finally died. So I have to find a new computer for that. Anyway... enjoy.. :).

August 27, 2003: Drums++ can now create .midi files. This is now worth it to make binaries, so I will post a Windows binary tonight. I still plan on doing native Windows MIDI hardware sequencing, but I'll have to learn how to do it first. It looks quite complex compared to Linux.

August 26, 2003: I've started getting some bug reports in. And I've started fixing them :). Please note in the sample.dpp file, bpm is spelled as bmp, therefore it is ignored. I've added midi file creation, but there is a bug in there so it doesn't work yet... but it should work soon. Anyway, I released the current bug fixes and new -i option as version 0.85.

August 25, 2003: HOLY TRUCK IT WORKS!!! Okay, here's the first releast of Drums++ programming language and player. The docs are hopefully readable. If you have trouble please email me, it's kinda late at night and I'm sure I messed something up. Anyway, currently /dev/midi00 is hardcoded as the midi device. This will change in the next release. Hopefully this works on other OS's other than Linux, but for now I've only tested it on Linux. For those wanting to try this out, I'd recommend using the sample.dpp file has a template for writing your own songs. All features are used in there (for the most part).

August 23, 2003: I've been working on this program for a few days now, the parser is pretty much done. Now I just have to write code to generate MIDI commands. I'm hoping for a release pretty soon :).