[linux-audio-user] midi definition

Lee Revell rlrevell at joe-job.com
Thu Oct 13 18:30:44 EDT 2005


On Thu, 2005-10-13 at 23:34 +0200, mh wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I would like to have a better knowlege about the midi protocol, to 
> understand better what is stored in a midi file and how it is stored. I 
> am not that much interested in bits and bytes, but in how a description 
> of a note works in midi, i.e. is a note defined by a start point and a 
> duration ( and the end point is a consequence) or is midi a start and an 
> end point ( and the duration is a consequence). What is a pause? Is it a 
> silent note? How does a notation application calculate ties or what 
> remains of tied notes? The duration only? And so on...

Basically all MIDI is is Note On at X time on foo channel, Note Off at Y
time on foo channel.  Duration would not work as a property of the Note
On, as MIDI has to function in real time - when a piano player hits a
note you have no idea when he/she will release it.

The easiest way to see this is to run aseqdump and then play at a MIDI
keyboard.  You can see in real time what the MIDI representation of
anything you do is.

Lee




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