Adding an Instrument to Robot Rock

What you need:

• soundfont for the instrument (fontName.sf2, ex: Maestro.sf2)
• an icon for the instrument (icon.png)
• text file of tags (info.txt)
• python file of the instrument itself (instrumentName.py, ex: snaredrum.py)
• python file to test the instrument (test instrumentName.py, ex: testsnaredrum.py)
• folder to contain most of these files (instrumentName musician/, ex: snaredrummusician/)

What goes where:

• The soundfont file goes in the folder /robotrock/soundfonts/ (this may also be /Python26/robotrockresources/sounds/)
• All of the other files go into the instrument folder.

Formatting:

info.txt

• info.txt has the following format:

  tags: tag1,tag2,_tag3

• tag1, tag2, and tag3 are tags supplied by you, the developer (ex: drum, guitar, percussion)
• Here is a sample line for info,txt:

  tags: percussion,drumkit,snare

• The important parts to note:

  • Starts with "tags: " - always needs to start with this string
  • Comma separated listing of tags. Also, there should be no spaces after the commas, this is optional but highly recommended.

• You can add as many tags as you desire, but you should only put on descriptive tags, the tags tell the UI how to sort this instrument.

instrumentName.py:

• Needs to inherit from Musician (in musician.py) at some point. Can inherit from something like MusicianStructured and get this as well.
• Needs a special 'Musician'Musician() method.

  • Same indentation as the class declaration
  • Returns anewly constructorcreated forinstance of this musician
  • ex: in snaredrume.py, class SnareDrum(MusicianStructured)snaredrume.py:
  • def Musician()
  • return SnareDrum()

class SnareDrum(MusicianStructured)

...

def Musician()

return SnareDrum()

• in init:__init__:

  • Needs a self.instrument field containing a string of the name of the instrument (ex: 'snare drum')
  • Non-tonal instruments need a self._my_tone which indexes to it's sound in the soundfont (ex: Drumkit["Snare Drum 1"]; referenced through a dictionary)
  • Fields for energy, complexity, key signature, and time signature (it is recommended that these get accessed by properties)

• A compose method: compose(self, measure, window_start, window_duration, current_score_slice)

  • This method is called by the conductor (access to this musician from the rest of the program)
  • See musician.py, sample musicians, and the rest of the documentation for further details

• To hear music, the musician needs to be properly adding notes onto the given measure (see sample musicians for how to do this)

Additional steps

• The folder for the musician (ex: snaredrummusician/) needs to go in /robotrock/robotrock/musicians/
• Need to edit the file /robotrock/soundfonts/basic_set.txt (could also be in /Python26/robotrockresourses/sounds)

  • Add a line for the new musician, format is below:
  • instumentname : soundfont
  • The instrumentname is the same one written into the self.instrument field
  • The soundfont is a soundfont (of type .sf2) placed in the same folder as basic_set.txt
  • ex: snare drum : HS_R8_Drums.sf2