The music file included with Bricklayer is an original composition by Peter Wagner. For more information about his music, contact Mr. Wagner. His address is:

Peter Wagner
576 Echo Glen Avenue
River Vale, NJ 07675
AOL Screen Name: BlackCeleb

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Creating your own music files for use with Bricklayer requires using ResEdit. If you're not familiar with ResEdit, it's a resource editor made by Apple. Resources are special pieces of data in an application or data file, like a sound or a picture. Using ResEdit, you can change these resources, thereby causing the program that uses the resources to exhibit new behavior. For instance, you might edit some of the graphics resources of Bricklayer to make all the pieces look like they're made out of miniature teddy bears. If you don't already have a copy, you should be able to find ResEdit from a local Macintosh user group, or if you have a connection to the internet, you can ftp it from ftp.apple.com. 

ResEdit is not for the faint of heart. It is possible to completely trash a file by screwing up its resources with ResEdit, so always work with a copy of the file, never the original. It's not the most friendly and intuitive program around, either. However, if you exercise common sense and work on a copy of the file instead of the original, you should be able to accomplish a great deal using ResEdit, and no one will get hurt. Attempting to explain how to use it is a huge task, so this document will assume you already know your way around ResEdit fairly well. If not, Apple publishes a book that describes the use of ResEdit thoroughly. Please do not send me email asking how to use ResEdit! I have already received more than a lifetime supply of such messages.

Using ResEdit, create a new ResEdit document. Change its creator to "log_" and its type to "tMUS". You will add your music segments to this document as "snd " resources. 

Now digitize some music using your favorite digitizer. Using a program such as SoundEditPro or Sample Editor, break the music up into segments. If there are themes or refrains in the music which repeat, you need only make a single segment for each. When you're done, you should be able to play the whole song by stringing segments together, perhaps repeating some. Add these segments as "snd " resources to your newly created file, giving them appropriate names.

For example, if my song had the logical structure ABACAB, I would cut segments out of the full-length song corresponding to sections A,B, and C. I would then add three "snd " resources to my ResEdit document, and name them A, B, and C.

For Bricklayer to play your music, you need to tell it in what order your segments should be played. Essentially, you just list the order, so for the example above I would give Bricklayer the order "A,B,A,C,A,B." When it reaches the end of the order you've specified, Bricklayer starts over at the beginning, so I would end up with music playing ABACABABACABABACAB... 

You can also make Bricklayer loop back to someplace other than the beginning of the order after it reaches the end. This is useful if your music has some kind of "intro" to it that you only want to play on the first pass through, but not on the loop-backs. Simply rename the sound segment that you want Bricklayer to loop back to "repeat". So if what I really wanted was ABACABCABCABCAB..., I would rename the sound segment "C" "repeat". Then I would give Bricklayer the order "A,B,A,repeat,A,B". If the repeat sound appears more than once in the order, it must be called "repeat" at every occurence. Thus "A,B,repeat,A,repeat,B,A" is acceptable, but "A,B,repeat,A,C,B,A" is not.

How exactly is the order given to Bricklayer? It is specified in a STR# resource. Create a new STR# resource with ID 128. The name of the first segment in the order goes at index 1, the second at index 2, and so on. So for the example, I would put "A" at index 1, "B" at index 2, "repeat" at index 3, "A" at 4, and "B" at 5.

That's it! You should also put a description of your music, with information such as the title, author, etc, in STR# resource ID 129, index 1. This string will be displayed whenever the user selects the "about background music" option from the apple menu. Here's your chance for fame!

Some things to watch out for:
¥ Background music files must be kept in a folder called "Bricklayer Music", and this folder must be in the same folder as the Bricklayer application.
¥ The background music only works with a 68020 or better CPU.
¥ The snd resources must all be format 1 resources. For most people this is the default anyway, so you shouldn't need to worry about this.
¥ If the sound segments are very large, the memory allotted to Bricklayer (in the Finder's "Get Info" box) may need to be increased in order for things to work properly. If things are crashing inexplicably or the music turns to noise, try increasing the memory allocated to the program. This is especially true if the snd resources are marked "locked" in the music file.
¥ If the snd resources are marked "purgeable", you may be able to get away with allocating less memory to Bricklayer. The program will attempt to dynamically load and purge the sounds as they are needed. However, marking the resouces "purgeable" can result in audible delays between music segments as the next segment is loaded from disk. 

Steve Chamberlin
granola@aol.com
6/19/94
