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DLS Designer

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The DLS Designer component enables you to create collections of instruments based on the Downloadable Sounds Level 2 standard, published by the MIDI Manufacturers Association.

Devices that play MIDI notes can synthesize those notes in different ways, using one of the following to generate the appropriate timbres:

  • Algorithmic frequency modulation (FM). No sound samples are used. This is the technique used by older MIDI sound cards.
  • Wave tables in hardware. The timbres are based on sound samples hard-coded into the device.
  • Downloadable Sounds (DLS). The timbres are based on sound samples downloaded to the device as required. The device can be a software synthesizer, such as the Microsoft Synthesizer, or a hardware synthesizer.

The advantages of DLS over the other techniques include the following:

  • Unlimited number of available instruments. An instrument might represent the timbre of an actual musical instrument, a nonmusical sound effect, or any other sound, even a fully composed measure of music.
  • No need for special hardware, other than a standard sound card, as long as a software synthesizer is available. The Microsoft Synthesizer is available on all systems that have the DirectMusic components.
  • Consistent results on all hardware.
  • Universal, full set of features for processing samples, such as articulation and use of different samples for different pitches and velocities.

A DLS instrument is always created as part of a collection. A DLS collection is usually made up of multiple DLS instruments that you combine and distribute as a group for use with note-based content. The collection contains all the instrument settings and waves.

DirectMusic Producer comes with a complete General MIDI collection of DLS instruments in the GM.dls file. The GM.dls collection is available to all projects at all times, and you do not need to add it to the project tree. You can distribute this collection, unaltered, with your files; however, generally there is no need to do so, because it is available on all systems that have DirectMusic installed. For more information, see Default GM Sound Set.

This section describes how to create DLS instruments as part of custom collections.