This program was created due to a lack of options for using a MIDI piano with Tower Unite. Native support has been in the talks for years, but so far there hasn't been any notable progress. Tower Unite MIDI .NET will convert any MIDI devices input into something Tower Unite can read. Due to popular request during development, playback of MIDI files has also been implemented.
Tower Unite MIDI .NET is written in C# and heavily utilises the DryWetMidi library.
Using Tower Unite MIDI .NET is simple!
-
Obtain the latest release from the "Releases" page.
-
Extract the archive into it's own folder.
-
Run the program.
-
You'll notice 2 tabs in the program, MIDI Device Setup and MIDI Playback. MIDI Device Setup is your go-to tab for setting up and using your MIDI devices, where as MIDI Playback is the tab you'll need for playing back MIDI files.
-
MIDI Device Setup
5A. To setup your MIDI device, please select it from the 'Input Devices' dropdown list. If it isn't showing up, please press the 'Scan for devices' button.
5B. Once you have your MIDI device selected, press 'Start Listening' to start recieving input from your device. Alternatively, you can open your Tower Unite window and hit the F1 key.
5C. To stop recieving input from your MIDI device, press the 'Stop Listening' button, or alternatively press the F2 key.
5D. By default, the note's are transposed so that middle C (C4) on your device aligns with Tower Unite. If you're unhappy with this transposition, and your device doesn't natively support transposing, you can use the 'Octave Transposition' slider to customise it to your liking.
-
MIDI Playback
6A. First, browse for your file using the 'Browse' button.
6B. If you wish to transpose or modify the playback speed of your file, you can do so using the provided sliders. Note that you cannot modify this while the file is playing.
6C. Open your Tower Unite window and press the F1 key to begin file playback.
6D. If you wish to stop playing the file early, hit the F2 key.
-
Options
7A. Ping Input
On laggier connections, you'll notice some dud black keys. This is because Tower Unite doesn't have enough time to register the fact that the program has hit the shift key. To combat this, the program has a miniscule delay (15ms) built in to key presses, but sometimes that's not enough. If you're having problems, use this to input your Tower Unite ping and the program will do its best to assign a more appropriate key delay. Please note that this will add latency between your key presses vs. when you hear them.
7B. Detailed Logging
Enables the logging of events such as MIDI key presses.
Yes, it was written in python by a steam user called Mattio. This was great for a while, but my reason for creating this alternative is primarily because Mattio's version had some limitations.
- It hasn't been updated in 2 years.
- It required devices to specifically use MIDI channel 1.
- It very rarely had good black key presses.
- It didn't offer MIDI playback.
My program not only solves these limitations, but offers a fair bit more in terms of functionality.
Macroing is a touchy subject in Tower Unite. As stated here by the lead developer of Tower Unite, piano macro's are okay, and I've personally never experienced an issue during testing. Even though this software doesn't inject anything and only sends keypresses, I'd still take care as Tower Unite is VAC protected, and VAC doesn't discriminate. Please always make sure to take care in starting and stopping the software only while you're on the piano, and as always, this software is used at your own risk.
- Sometimes, you may be required to spam the "stop" key or button when playing a MIDI, though I've rarely encountered this and cannot reliably replicate it.
- Currently only supports a QWERTY keyboard layout. I'll make other layouts such as AZERTY if demand is high enough.
Please either raise an issue here on Github, or email me.
Nothing is currently planned. Please let me know if you have any idea's for future features!
MIT License
Copyright (c) 2019 Bailey Eaton
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.