MiniBAE
mini Beatnik Audio Engine, more commonly known as miniBAE, is a software synthesizer developed by Beatnik. It is an optimized version of Beatnik Audio Engine intended for playing back ringtones and other audio on mobile phones. Like with BAE, its soundbanks are stored in the proprietary Headspace Sound Bank (.hsb) format. By default it supports various formats, including Rich Music Format (.rmf, Beatnik's proprietary MIDI-based format with support for audio samples), MIDI, WAV, AIFF, and MP3.
The engine features 64-voice polyphony by default, although many phones using miniBAE have a reduced polyphony, which can range from 4-voice to 48-voice. Soundbanks can include three banks comprising up to 128 instruments: Bank 0 (General MIDI), Bank 1 (Beatnik Special) features unique patches, and Bank 2 (Custom) can be used by the user for custom instruments. It also includes support for reverb and chorus effects, although most phones' implementations of miniBAE do not support this. Beatnik Editor is Beatnik's software used to author music with miniBAE, although it uses BAE, which has a different volume curve.
The engine appears on numerous phones released throughout the 2000s, including phones by Nokia, Danger, and Sony Ericsson. However, these implementations remove support for features such as reverb and chorus, as well as MPEG samples. Nokia's implementation does not include support for RMF on its Symbian phones, and very limited support on Series 40 phones. It was succeeded by the rewritten mobileBAE, released in 2002 but did not start shipping on phones until 2004.
After Beatnik ended its business in 2009 (and before becoming defunct in 2011), miniBAE's source code was released under a BSD license.[1] Enthusiast zefie managed to get the code to work on Linux (ANSI, waveout only) and Windows.
Soundbanks
There are several soundbanks used as the default soundbank of miniBAE, depending on the software or device it is included on.
SalterNokia
SalterNokia is the working title of a soundbank created by Brian Salter for Beatnik in 2000. It later shipped on the Sony Ericsson P800, released in 2002. An optimized version of this bank appeared on a later firmware of the phone, and another optimized version appeared on both the P900 and P910.
Nokia (patches / npatches)
There are four miniBAE soundbanks used on Nokia phones. The first one that shipped is the Nokia small soundbank (aka "Chippy"), which appears on low-mid end Series 30 and 40 phones, the Nokia large soundbank which appears on Symbian and mid-high end Series 40 phones, and the later Idefix soundbank which uses instruments from both banks. These three soundbanks include a small selection of instruments in the Beatnik Special bank. A variant of the large soundbank, known as Mango, appears on the Nokia N-Gage, 7600, and 3300; it includes a larger selection of Beatnik Special instruments as well as a Beatnik Special percussion map.
Nokia did not provide any documentation for their soundbanks. Info about them has been gathered from converting the soundbanks into Beatnik Editor sessions.
Beatnik Special sound set
The following Beatnik Special instruments are included in Nokia's soundbanks:
| Prog # | Instrument |
|---|---|
| 1 | Strings FadeInOut |
| 2 | SynthFX 2 |
| 3 | Bog bird |
| 4 | Dual sound |
| 5 | "Wohou" |
| 6 | Right pair |
| 7 | Lowest Thump! |
| 8 | Environment/Wind |
| 9 | Gong |
| 10 | Environment/Water drop1 |
| 11 | Environment/Water drop2 |
| Prog # | Instrument |
|---|---|
| 12 | ¥Chicks Rhodes* |
| 13 | ¥Rock Organ w/les |
| 14 | ¥GtFunkyMte* |
| 15 | ¥GtDist refs* |
| 16 | ¥Sitar |
| 17 | ¥Didgerdoo* |
| 18 | ¥Wooden Flute+ |
| 19 | ¥Bandhit+ |
| 20 | ¥Sy 303 b* |
| 21 | ¥Sy 303 Square* |
| 22 | ¥BaSy SH101 Saw |
| 23 | ¥BaSy Res |
| 24 | ¥TP Gamellon |
| 25 | ¥Pc Berimbau 1 |
| 26 | vocoder Co |
| 27 | vocoder oo |
| 28 | vocoder Zz |
| 29 | vocoder Mi |
| 30 | vocoder kh |
| 31 | vocoder Jam |
| 39 | Snare (2) |
| 43 | Hi Hat |
| 47 | Open Hi Hat (2) |
Beatnik Special percussion map
Only present in the Mango soundbank.
| Note | Note # | Drum sound |
|---|---|---|
| E1 | 28 | DrAn DistSlap |
| F1 | 29 | DrScrat 2 |
| F♯1 | 30 | DrScrat 3 |
| G1 | 31 | DrFx |
| G♯1 | 32 | Pc Fx1 |
| A1 | 33 | DrAn LoQ |
| A♯1 | 34 | Pc Bata 1 |
| B1 | 35 | ¥DrBd (2) |
| C2 | 36 | DrBd 909 |
| C♯2 | 37 | DrSnareFx1 |
| D2 | 38 | DrSnare P-N* |
| D♯2 | 39 | Dr Gated Noiz |
| E2 | 40 | DrSnSnap808* |
| F2 | 41 | Dr TTom |
| F♯2 | 42 | DrHHat Dance |
| G2 | 43 | Dr TTom (2) |
| G♯2 | 44 | DrHHat Dance (2) |
| A2 | 45 | Dr TTom (3) |
| A♯2 | 46 | (Open Hi Hat (2)) |
| B2 | 47 | Pc Drum Sine |
| C3 | 48 | Pc Drum Sine (2) |
| D3 | 50 | Pc Drum Sine (3) |
| F♯3 | 54 | DrSnare fx |
| G♯3 | 56 | Pc CowBel ana |
| A♯3 | 58 | Pc Sticks |
| C4 | 60 | Pc Conga ana |
| C♯4 | 61 | Pc Conga ana (2) |
| D4 | 62 | Pc Conga* |
| D♯4 | 63 | Pc Drum Slap |
| E4 | 64 | Pc Conga (3) |
| F4 | 65 | Pc Tabla |
| F♯4 | 66 | Pc Tabla (2) |
| G4 | 67 | Pc Tabla (3) |
| G♯4 | 68 | Pc Tabla (4) |
| A4 | 69 | DrScrat 6 |
| A♯4 | 70 | DrScrat 7 |
| B4 | 71 | DrSnare07 |
| C5 | 72 | DrBd Dist* |
| C♯5 | 73 | DrSnare alex* |
| D5 | 74 | Pc Sticks (2) |
Danger Hiptop / T-Mobile Sidekick
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