ULTMKJ.TXT --- The Comprehensive Help Guide to The Ultimate MKJ Player v2.0 ...and also... The MKJ Sound FAQ Information last updated on : December 15th, 1996 The Ultimate MKj Player last updated on : December 15th, 1996 This document will provide answers to some commonly asked questions, or at least probable questions. For basic help, read the Help...Contents section of the Ultimate MKJamz Player v2.0. Don't email us and ask a question that appears on here. Repeat. Don't email us and ask a question that appears on here. Now that that has been said, someone will inevitably ask us a question that appeared on here. I. General Questions Q.) What is MKJamz? A.) MKJamz (please forgive the stupid name) is a file format designed for QBasic programmers who want MIDI-like music in their programs. The earliest version of MKJamz was completed sometime around August of 1996. Q.) Where can I get MKJ songs? A.) Right now, the best (and only to our knowledge) place to download MKJ songs is our FTP or WWW sites. They are both listed under the Help...Support section. Q.) What can MKJamz do for ME? A.) It can play nice music for you to listen to. Also, you can easily play MKJs WITHIN YOUR VERY OWN PROGRAM! Just copy all of those routines that are available in the MKJamz programmers kit, and plug 'em into your program. You'll be playing nice little songs in no time, at the same quality as professional (hah!) players like the Ultimate MKJ Player. You can even put them into your games. However, we aren't saying this is a cure-all multimedia solution for your programs. All the code is in QBasic SUB form, so it has it's disadvantages. But, we are using MKJs in some of our future games like "Pieces 2" and the already available "Pong Mania v2.0". Q.) How do I make my own MKJ songs? A.) Visit our FTP or WWW sites and download the MKJAMZ.ZIP file, located in the graphics and sound kit. It contains a large amount of source code and is highly commented. Knowledge of the PLAY syntax helps. Q.) It's too hard to make MKJ songs. When is a decent composer going to be made? A.) We are working on one similar to the note layout in the Ultimate MKJ player, but for now the MKJamz kit will have to do. If you don't like it, then put each note frequency directly into the buffer your- self. Q.) I want to play MIDIs. Can you send me MIDI code or give me any general MIDI info? A.) No, we can't. Go to that x2ftp site and download the documents on MIDIs. Don't ask us for the x2ftp site URL. It's probably x2ftp.oulu.fi . Just don't email us and ask about MIDIs, if we get MIDI code it will be in the /examples/ directory of our FTP site. Q.) I think MKJs suck. Where can I channel my ignorance? A.) As long as it ain't to us, we don't care. Q.) How do I play WAVs? A.) There is WAV code on our FTP site. Q.) What's up with no true percussive instruments in MKJamz? A.) As soon as we receive (or find) adequate documentation, we'll add those. We've tried, but we only got a drum sound like 1 time out of 25 attempts. Also, we're putting that off because it would likely require a bunch of additional code and format modifications, and we're really pretty content with the state of MKJs. II. Ultimate MKJamz Player v2.0 Questions Q.) What's the difference between v1.1 and v2.0? They look the same to me. A.) The major change is the new File...Open interface, which is light years beyond the old one. You now get a Windows-like dialogue box which makes finding MKJ files 100 times easier. It also has keyboard support. We would like to thank Mark K Kim (MarkKKim@aol.com) for lending us his various routines to detect the directories, files, etc. The other difference, which is explained more in depth later on, is that the songs load *fast*. Q.) Are those the only changes? A.) Nope! Due to popular demand, percussive instruments have now been added to MKJamz. All MKJamz with a version of 1.11 or higher support percussive instruments. For a short little example of these, play the POSSUM.MKJ file that came with the Ultimate MKJ Player v2.0. Q.) I can't get it to work, and the problem is related to my sound card. (or lack thereof) A.) Well, past versions were very limited in terms of sound card i/o configurations supported, but version 1.1 will scan through the most probable base ports and check if your card is there. If it finds it, it displays a short message telling you your baseport. The range is from 210h to 280h; it checks 210h, then 220h, then 230h, etc. Personally, we've never seen a card other than 220h. Q.) Are there any features that I am not aware of? A.) You might not have noticed the command line feature. It takes a file name from the command line optionally. Therefore, you could type c:\> ultmkj c:\windows\heart.mkj and it would load up and start playing c:\windows\heart.mkj. This may not seem useful, but it is. You see, you can associate all MKJ files with ULTMKJ.EXE and then, throughout windows, if you double click on any MKJ file it will automatically start playing through ULTMKJ.EXE. Q.) What's up with the new, faster MKJ loader? A.) Well, we remembered that QBasic likes to change the data that our crude far-pointers point to, and that is what we think was causing all of the trouble. Yes, that's right, we managed to shift the blame nicely off of ourselves and onto someone else. If you recall, all previous versions of the Ultimate MKJamz Player took forever to load a song, and we had a super-fast routine that for some reason crashed our computers all the time. Well, we rolled up our sleeves and in about 2 minutes we fixed everything. (maybe) Q.) Sometimes the music gets screwed up. Why? A.) This can happen for any number of reasons, but, if you are on at least a 486dx33, which most of you probably are, the one time the music gets really off track is when you keep pulling down all of the menus. It takes a bit of time to draw up the menus, that's why it screws up the music. Also, when we say 486dx33, that's just because it's the worst computer than we got a chance to test this on. Q.) What good is the DOS Shell? A.) Well, with the new File...Open module, not much. But, you never know when a nice DOS shell will come in handy...for example, you could see how many times you can run The Ultimate MKJamz Player from within itself! You can run other Sound Blaster programs and see how screwed up you can get the Ultimate MKJ Player to sound! The excitement never ends! Q.) How do I Mute or Solo a channel? A.) To mute a channel, click on the box with the red circle above the channel you want to mute. It will then turn green, signifying that the channel is muted. To un-mute it, just click it again. To solo a channel, do the same thing but click on a box besides Solo and not Mute. Soloing is basically muting every channel except one, and that is reflected by having each channel muted except the channel you selected to solo. To un-solo, and, in effect, un-mute everything, click the solo-ed channel again. Q.) How come when I try to make the song go faster, it instead turns into crap? A.) Because that feature does not work 100% of the time. If you don't it, don't use it. The slow-down feature probably has the same problem. It's funny because it works well it our other player. In version 2.0 it seems to work a little better. Q.) I really screwed up the song by making it go really fast and muting half the channels. How do I reset a song? A.) Click on the "Stop" icon at the bottom of the screen. Q.) What are those dumb smiling faces for? A.) Those 2 smiling faces represent the volume. The guy is "happy" if the volume is cranked all the way up. To change the volume, click and drag on the little bar in-between them. As a special treat, you even get to watch their faces change as you change the volume. We know y'all love to see stuff like that, but please, try to contain your elation. Q.) I think this player sucks. Please tell me there is another player. A.) You're in luck. There are currently 3 other signifigant players that we are aware of. They are : Projammer V1.1 By Turbo Systems Software http://members.aol.com/roadbustr/homepage/tss.htm email : tssoft1@aol.com The Offical MKJ Player v2.0 By M \ K Productions http://members.aol.com/mkwebsite/index.html email : blood225@aol.com Slam Jamz by Aura Software WWW site undetermined email : asoftds@aol.com We encourage you to download all of those players, and, in general, get more involved with the whole MKJamz family.