ChoonMLLib User Manual

V0.1    31-Oct-2006

Introduction

This manual gives an overview of the ChoonMLLib class library. This library has been developed to provide an application interface and reference implementation for the ChoonML multitrack remixable music format.

A reference to the library is located at http://choonml.sourceforge.net/LibHelp/index.html.

For end-users (musos), a binary distribution can be downloaded at:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=178764&package_id=209951&release_id=460049

The library source is available from:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=178764&package_id=209952&release_id=460047

Platforms supported

Currently the ChoonML library has been developed and tested using .NET1.1 on Windows XP. It should work on any Windows version that supports .NET1.1.

It has been built and is provided with project files for Visual Studio 2003. It should be possible to convert these into VS2005 format and compile in that version.

Support for mono, and hence Linux/Mac is in the pipeline.

Building

To build the ChoonML toolkit (library, converter driver and Adobe Audition converter), use the following steps:

  1. Unzip the ChoonML_Muso_0_1.zip file into a suitable folder.
  2. Open the Toolkit_VS2003.sln file in VS2003.
  3. Build as debug or release build.
  4. To test, see the manual for chconv

 

Creating converters

A converter is a .NET assembly (DLL file) that implements ChoonConvert.IConvertCommon and either IConvertFrom or IConvertTo.

This file should be placed in the save directory as chconv.exe. This will enable it to be automatically used to convert files of the types it supports.

A converter will typically use the ChoonML namespace classes to implement the reading or creation of ChoonML files.

Converting to ChoonML

This type of converter reads a file in another format and converts into ChoonML. An example is the Audition converter class AudConvertFrom.

The steps to do this depend on the input file format but typically include:

· Create an instance of Choon

· Set the properties of Choon and add entries to the Sections, Parts and Samples collections.

· Save metadata using SaveMeta

· Write the SFT using WriteSFT, then write out sample data using WriteSample

· Finally, rewrite the SFT using WriteSFT

Converting from ChoonML

This type of converter reads a ChoonML files and converts to another format. An example is the Audition converter class AudConvertTo.

The steps to do this depend on the result file format but typically include:

· Create an instance of Choon

· Call the Load method to load the .chml file.

· Access the properties of Choon and read the Sections, Parts and Samples collections.

· Use the Extract method to access the sample data.

Integrating with applications

You can integrate ChoonML support into audio processing applications.

There are two ways to do this: