Bloom's MIDI Magic

 Maia Antarra: the one hud to rule them all

Our final stop today was on Winxtropia, to see Bloom Peter's MIDI tool. There was an extended post about it a few weeks ago but of course reading about a place isn't anything like actually visiting, and projects like this one are always getting developed, expanded, and moved ahead in ways that the written word can't always keep up with.

Bloom is undoubtedly an Opensim treasure. The first visit by the Safari to one of her sims was - can you believe it? - in July of 2014, on OSGrid - we visited her famous roller coaster build, back then we knew her as the avatar Cuteulala Artis. 

It all begins with the keyboard.

But today's visit was all about the keyboard, all about the software, the music, the dancing. the cats, and making something even more outrageously fun... We arrived on Crescent Melody Studio (HG Addresses at the end of this post) which is a minimalist space, giving all possible energy to the explanation and demonstration of Bloom's MIDI tool

Bloom Peters: for those who are here please set your settings as shown in the front in preferences

Jade Serenity: whew thank goodness for BOM undies

Bloom Peters: Don't worry no one will look at your undies only everyone.

Star Ravenhurst: Hi Everyone! So many!

Bloom Peters: This will be a interesting load on the machine hehe

Farstar Enoch: but machine is super powerful

Tosha Tyran: omg, this is overwhelming

Malburns Craftster: Cricky - this is now epic!

Bloom Peters: i suppose good time to start?

Thirza Ember: Give us a sec, we who got here last are waiting for a few bits to rez...of ourselves, and of your signs. Just to state the obvious to everyone, this is a sound based event, so need to have sound on... OK everyone's here I believe Bloom

Jade Serenity: voice?

Bloom Peters: Please turn on sounds to enjoy it - no voice... to get the best experience be as close to the circle as possible, you can technically be everywhere if you want. Welcome to a project that has been in the works with a dream for 18 years. Crescent Melody Studio is the result of a passion to bring real musical production to opensim and second life, however second life has broken this machine, so i am now focusing on bringing it to opensim fully.

Diezel Tone: n i c e

Bloom Peters: welcome to the first ever Midi supported (Emulated) region. Here behind me is a entire midi system,  I sampled all 11,964 wav samples from the entire microsoft midi sample set, and had to do various optimizations to ensure it is fast and reliable

Jade Serenity: blinks

Maia Antarra: it looks like the biggest hud I've ever seen

Tosha Tyran: omg that is impressive

Bloom Peters: So how does this sim play midi files?  I had to program a few computer software with the help of my friend 4L3X15 Button and Takni Miklos. Without those two it would have never happened. Button has made me initially a midi to notecard converter from 6 years ago, and Takni Miklos wrote me a starter engine for a single piano.

Star Ravenhurst: We can always accomplish more together.

Bloom Peters: After taking 14 years of scripting I managed to figure out how to make a multi track system, but as we know, timers in opensim is as bad as a car crash, getting music to play in a sim is a wish sometimes haha! but i managed to pull it off with the help of external software and scripts in world... but first let's have fun with the first song! and then I explain more.

Tosha Tyran: are you some kind of a wizard, Bloom? or just a plain genius

Star Ravenhurst: I think she is Tosha.

Bloom Peters: ok i will now play a midi file that has been converted to Opensim... we will play blame it on the boogie, it is a 16 track song, keep in mind the first time sounds load for you, it will sound off, and gradually cache in, or it may sound bad the entire time... idk how well this works over the internet. 

Diezel Tone: wooooo! midi lovelines!

Malburns Craftster: heard then stopped ... good again now

Bloom Peters: Ohhhh! it paused, someone joined, I will disable the lag stopper

Nara Nook: I hear it

Fitheach Eun: there it is, good chair dancing beat

Farstar Enoch: they will all catch up eventually

Maia Antarra: this is fun,  and a show with it

Bloom Peters: The machine supports 70% of all midi files  and its 70... Because opensim cant play notes that are in between notes none quantized, it requires quantized notes on the grid, but music producers will now be able to write music into the sim to share it with others and you do not have to use the sounds this kit provides, not only can you control music, you can also use it to control things in the sim like lasers to the rhythm using midi note triggers... this is fully done in the region after the midi is converted in but it does require a special pc tool to make it play and stay in sync

Diezel Tone: what type of software does it run on your computer, something like Python script?

Bloom Peters: a pc tool presses the up arrow on my keyboard at a steady rate which the huds pick up each hud is the instrument the song uses up there ( shows the hud on the left)

Ayesha Rasmuson: so do you program the songs in advance or play in real time?

Bloom Peters: you must program a song in advance, you toss each track into a seperate notecard 1 track per notecard per instrument hud, you wear the huds on your hud, all tracks and the pc software will trigger them... green is the hud, sounds are stored in the pipe  in orange

Tosha Tyran: sounds like a damn heavy load

Bloom Peters: its not, it's a very light machine, very optimized, it does eat timers haha... but it's never too bad

Bloom Peters: ok another song! 

Diezel Tone: very impressive, stayed pretty much in sync for me this time

Tina Bey: yes

Bloom Peters: I decided to sample all the sounds from the entire midi kit so that artist can just import midi files right away

Whirli Placebo: bloom, i might have missed it, but how long have you been working with midi?

Bloom Peters: I have been into midi since i was a kid.

Thirza Ember: imagining all kinds of objects on the region being triggered by individual notes (and lights, and other things) you end up with a 3D symphony

Here is a screenshot from the video that Bloom made of our visit, in it you can see on the far right the HUD working on her screen, as well as all the 'machinery' inworld. It's  an impressive ensemble, a bit  awe-inspiring for many of us no doubt, but it does demonstrate the potential of Opensim to make pre-planned performances using objects inworld along with an immense variety or musical notes and sounds. You really need to see a practical working example, albeit a much earlier model, to get your head around this concept. For the past couple of years, the Safari has been over to see concerts by Bloom, and so to try to make clear what the practical use of all this wonderful tech could be, I convinced her to let us go back to the older sim and just refresh our memory...

Bloom Peters: So there is another place to go requested by Thirza but first, this is the engine that is going to power Version 2 of Crescent Melody. This is not Crescent Melody 2.0, it is being developed, but the engine and its sounds are now ready ...we are going to visit Crescent Melody 1 - I have two new songs for it, designed to showcase how optimized this is. To the eye it looks heavy but its lighter then a feather on resources. the entire OAR is 55 MB. Every sound has to be optimized and cut as short as possible because if it prolongs, it will throttle

Farstar Enoch: coool

Tina Bey: This could change the future of DJs..!

Thirza Ember: yes Tina, and also artists' ideas about what they can make, they can have a whole 'ballet' happening

Ayesha Rasmuson: that's the best part

Bloom Peters: you can theoretically use this machine to control anything in the sim if it can listen, it can do it

Maia Antarra: the one hud to rule them all

Bloom Peters: There will be two versions of this machine Freebie version, and a paid... the freebie version will be the sim we are going to but it does not come with midi conversion yull get a folder with tons of songs to play with it free of charge

Farstar Enoch: and paid version?

Bloom Peters: The paid version includes the midi converter / The FL Studio sample dumper / The Auto tool and you get this entire kit in this sim for... 5000 bucks! = joking, it will probably be around 100 to 150 but it is a heck of a work

Maia Antarra: 14 years worth

Bloom Peters: but i do want it affordable so everyone can get it

Farstar Enoch: 150 is very good for all the work

Bloom Peters: the scripts in this machine has been completely redone, updated to the new engine... this sim here is a bit more heavy then the other due to moving parts and things two of the songs i will play will push the machine to its limits.. but is it the limit? NAWWW

Thirza Ember: So imagine that big machine we just saw, but each note  and sound setting off a different object, like it does here.. but even more so!

Bloom Peters: slow song first and then a crazy fast one

Maia Antarra: it's like animusic

Farstar Enoch: such an amazing Build, looks fantastic

Fitheach.Eun: It does! Love the cats

Tosha Tyran: Bloom, how did you train the cats? with treats or with threats?

Farstar Enoch: both

Bloom Peters: there some limits - I can't talk when it plays because it takes over my keyboard. You are recommended to use an alt on a different pc to make it play. I could not make it self play inworld, I tried a billion times, it always go out of sync and it cannot play fast enough; timers are weird.  

Diezel Tone: yes timers are inaccurate in opensim

Maia Antarra: so glad I used my big screen for this

Bloom Peters: here we go! Dynamite Rave! ...was that the limit? NOPE!!  not even close...

Bloom Peters: i will need to write a manual for this machine and then i can release this sim here it is mandatory accredited work

Tina Bey: wow, it will be like basic Chinese..

Star Ravenhurst: Bloom, you have a YouTube channel, correct? I think I am subscribed.

Thirza Ember: creating hours of entertainment all over opensim

Bloom Peters: I do have a youtube channel  Crescent Melody were you can follow this machines progress and listen to songs, for those who have lag, and cant enjoy the machine, i post videos of its progress as well as songs here 

Whirli Placebo: Bloom, i have to leave, but it was so fun seeing crescent melody again!  always love coming here :)

Maia Antarra: Have to go now...thanks for the music Bloom and bye everyone

Bloom Peters: when the machine is released i will schedule  a class on certain days,  to teach hands on... and that concludes the event i think! Thank you all for coming!

Thirza Ember: wow going to be a great time of creativity ahead!

Star Ravenhurst: Thank you for such a lovely time Bloom.

Tosha Tyran: really wonderful, Bloom, thank you ever so much

Tina Bey: Thanks a million, Bloom, you're amazing, you'll be modifying OpenSim, thanks for that.

HG  Address: 

The studio sim: bloompeters.ddns.net:11052:Crescent Melody Studio

The place with all the cats: bloompeters.ddns.net:11052:Crescent Melody