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Text File | 1992-03-08 | 12.0 KB | 254 lines

M I D I S T U F F ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 1st PreRelease for Rel 2 - - MIDIstuff - - - Feb 10, 1992 Introducing: This package contains 8 little tools that use the MIDI.library so that they can use MIDI at the same time and can easily be combined in a modular way. Requirements: ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bill Barton's Midi.Library version 2. ARP Library. Works on an ancient A500 with Kickstart 1.2, not tested on any newer. MIDI Ports V1.2 MIDI Ports Monitor ~~~~~~~~~~ This little tool will always keep you up to date upon public MIDI ports attached to the MIDI.Library. Actually it was meant to become a patchbay the way Bill suggested it, but I found no way of getting a list of all existing routes between the ports (Bill: hint! hint!), so all I can do is display the names of the ports. At least this is done with elegance: Ports opens up a window and writes the list of 'sources' to the left and the 'dests' to the right. Nice thing about it is, it automatically resizes the window to the necessary amount of lines to display everything. SYNTAX: Ports MIDI Keys V2.0 Virtual MIDI Keyboard ~~~~~~~~~ Shows a 10-octave (full MIDI note range) keyboard in a window, displays all incoming MIDI notes ('OMNI mode') by highlighting the keys with colours changing by velocity. When the window is activated a piano keyboard is simulated on the Amiga keyboard. You can also play notes with the mouse button. A 'thru' route can be established by hitting the F10 key, it will connect the Input and Output ports with each other. F2/F1 will in/decrement the current channel the keyboard sends on. SYNTAX: Keys [-i <Input>] [-o <Output>] [-t] [-f] [-c <Channel>] [-y <Position>] [<Name>] With the <i> and <o> options MIDI input & output streams can be redirected. The <t> activates the 'thru' route. <f> stands for 'followmouse', changes the way the mouse is scanned. You can set the MIDI channel with <c> and position the keyboard window at a certain height on the screen with <y>. The <Name> is to override the default port name "Keyboard". MIDI Recorder V1.2 Little MIDI Recorder ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Records or plays back note data from the musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) using MIDI realtime information as timing clock. Sequential music data can be stored and retrieved from DOS. SYNTAX: Recorder [-i <Input>] [-o <Output>] [-t] [-b <BufferSize>] [-r <RecordingBufferSize>] [<Name>] Redirection as always. The <b> changes the size of the "MAIN" track, the buffer of permanent data, and the <r> changes the size of the "AUX" track, which is a buffer used for incoming data only. The Recorder has no "PLAY" or "STOP" keys, it expects START and STOP events to come from MIDI along with the timing information. The "RECORD" gadget toggles recording and playback. When pressed it automatically 'rewinds' the tracks, so that recording or playback can be restarted without needing to stop the clock, unless you have other sequencing equipment or a drum machine attached. When activating the "RECORD" gadget the recording buffer ("AUX" track) is automatically deleted. When you have recorded something you like, you can copy it to the permanent buffer ("MAIN" track) with the "MEMORIZE" gadget. With this technique you can incrementally record on top of previous things, but you can't edit them in any way. Playback mode automatically merges the data on both tracks, so you have the chance to listen to what you played before copying it. Further functions can be obtains by picking menu items or pressing the equivalent keys. The functions and keys are: Load (right-amiga-"l") Choose a file to load. Save As (right-amiga-"s") Choose a filename to save music to. Re-Read (right-amiga-"r") Load that file again. Write (right-amiga-"w") Save it again. Kill (right-amiga-"k") Erase the "MAIN" track! Status (right-amiga-".") Shows current status of tracks. Thru (right-amiga-"`") Toggle the thru function. File operations apply only to the "MAIN" track, so only "memorized" notes are actually stored! Should you happen to have a too small main buffer, so that the Recorder refuses to copy your brilliant solo, you'll have to save the main track, then kill it, copy and save the solo. That is: KILL only affects the MAIN track, not the AUX (recording). Make use of the STATUS function to keep an eye on what is happening. The default sizes of the buffers are 40000 (MAIN) and 15000 (AUX). Note that each MIDI event requires 4 bytes, so you must divide the sizes by 4 to get the number of available event spaces. In the previous version of this program, 6 bytes were used. Because of this the two are NOT file compatible! Changes in speed are not stored. MIDI Clock Daemon V1.1 MIDI Clock Generator ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The clock daemon is used to produce standard MIDI timing signals. This program has no user interface by itself, it needs a controller to be used. As the word 'daemon' suggests, you must run it in the back- ground with runback, as it doesn't detach itself, and then it will wait for orders from its MIDI ports. It runs quite stable now and only seldom looses the beat or something like that. You must of course maintain the multitasking environment. To stop it you can use CTRL C, the BREAK command from a shell, or feed it with an unexpected MIDI code. SYNTAX: [run] ClockD [-o <Output>] [<Name>] The ClockD is called by the timer.device 96 times per quarter note, it then outputs a clock event to its MIDI port, which can be redirected into the recorder or anywhere else. The speed in beat per minute can be set with a certain MIDI controller code, as 'Control' does anyway. ClockD is still very sensitive about interruptions while it is running, avoid feeding it with too many commands as it might lock up the machine. MIDI Control V1.0 MIDI Clock Daemon Controller ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Finally you get the tool with the classic "START", "STOP" and "CONTINUE" gadgets. When you start it up, it will look for a running ClockD and connect itself to it so that you can use the gadgets. The tempo gadget works as you would expect and correctly displays the beats per minute. However be careful not to hassle too much with it while the clock is running as bad things can happen. Best is to change the speed only while stopped. Maybe if you have a faster Amiga than mine, this problem will not arise for you. SYNTAX: Control [-o <Output>] [<Name>] When the controller exits (by window-close or break) it will send a code to the attached Clock daemon to also exit. MIDI Echo V1.0 MIDI Echo Processor ~~~~~~~~~ This filter produces copies of incoming notes at exponentially decrementing velocity at the beat of the music. It expects both notes and MIDI timing information to come into its listening port and will count the MIDI timing to produce the echoes, therefore being always in time with the rest of the music and following changes in speed of the MIDI clock if you set it up to do so. SYNTAX: Echo [-i <Input>] [-o <Output>] [-t] [-c <Channel>] [-b <BufferSize>] [<Name>] Redirection as always. Specify on what channel Echo acts with <c>, this is the only way to change the default of 1. Change <b> in case you encounter a 'Buffer exceeded' message, the default is 400 events. This time the size is in events, not bytes (sorry). Each event takes 5 bytes. The gadgets: Delay is the number of MIDI ticks to wait before sending out an echo. To stay in the rhythm of the music you must use 'MIDI-even' numbers like 12, 24, 36, 48, 96. The default is 24. Decay is how much a note looses in volume (velocity actually) each time. R stands for repetitions and is used to limit the number of echoes, this is by default set to 'endless'. Mute suspends the operation of the program. Thru toggles the additional 'thru' route. Note that MIDI echoes never really sound natural, but people like Kraftwerk have sometimes used them instead of real echo processors because of the different feel of it. Consider also the weak points of MIDI technology, as it not always knows which voice to use upon receipt of NoteOn/Off for the same note, and much more, consider the velocity scaling of your synthesizer, as you might have to make changes to the sound program so that the velocity is correctly converted to output volume, not modified. MIDI Holder V1.1 Hold - A MIDI effect filter ~~~~~~~~~~~ This one is more simple, it just holds back the release of notes as long as possible. However the effect is interesting. SYNTAX: Holder [-i <Input>] [-o <Output>] [-t] [-c <Channel>] [-v <Voices>] [<Name>] Again the only way to make it work on a channel other than 1 is to specify <c>. With <v> you can set a limit of how many voices your synth is able to handle on that channel, so Echo will always release a note in time to make space for another one to avoid ugly cutoffs. The default is 8. Use <Name> if you don't like the name "Holder". This filter acts upon NoteOn and Off messages only, disregarding timing and everything else. With the "RELEASE" gadget you can release all notes being held at once. With "THRU" the usual thru route is enabled. MIDI Dump V1.1 Simple MIDI SysX Dumper ~~~~~~~~~ Receives & Sends MIDI "System Exclusive" data, (sysx, patch data for synthesizers etc.). Data can be stored and retrieved from DOS. SYNTAX: Dump [-i <Input>] [-o <Output>] [-b <BufferSize>] [-a] [<Name>] <i> and <o> as always, useful in case you want to use "midi_in" as Input. With <b> you can change the size of the buffer in bytes, the default is 30000. <a> stands for append mode. Default port name "Dump" can be changed by giving an argument, as always. It opens a text window and displays the list of commands. The commands are self-explicatory. About the append mode: When Dump is not in append mode it will automatically delete the buffer upon receipt of new SysX data. Some synthesizers though have the bad habit of saving their data with several SysX dumps instead of a big one. In normal mode Dump would just memorize the last one, with append mode they get appended to the buffer instead; then you can save them all into one file, or use the split-save function, which produces single files for each dump, but is not very elegant. It activates with CTRL-S, use only when necessary. General usage notes (for all programs in the package): ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - The screen title is often used for messages. - The programs use a certain <Name> in the MIDI library port lists, if this name is already taken they will automatically append a number to the name. You can override this by specifying the name you want as argument. - All utilities are now interruptable by CTRL-C or break command from CLI. - Automatic routes can be modified with the '-i' and '-o' switches. - Some utilities have 'thru' routes that can be activated with '-t'. - If a program fails to start try to run it in foreground, error messages are displayed to stdout sometimes. - None of the executables can be made resident. About the demo song ~~~~~ I wanted to include something small so here's the smallest thing I had in my archives. I think I wrote it at 130 bpm or something like that, but it sounds best at about 170. :-) COPYRIGHT NOTICE The binaries package is placed into public domain, this also includes the music files. Spread this data in whatever way you want, but leave my name in it, please. The package is provided "as is". I don't guarantee the functionality of any data provided with this package. Source-code can also be obtained by contacting me at my electronic mail address. I can send it to you then, though it's not in public domain. But I will only do so by email. I won't answer to anyone by snail mail. CONCLUDING... Hope this helps all of you MIDIaners even better than the release before! Postcards to: Carl "LynX" v. Loesch Milchstr. 32 D - 2900 Oldenburg ~~~~~~~~~ Germany Bug reports, suggestions, sourcecode requests, questions, contacts, contracts, cooperation, fan mail, virtual chocolate or job offers to: INTERNET: Carl.von.Loesch@Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.de or: lynx@dm.unirm1.it BITNET: 244661 at DOLUNI1