[sdiy] Midi problems

[Magnus Danielson]

From: "Paul Maddox" <Paul.Maddox at Wavesynth.com>
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Midi problems
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 22:07:22 +0100

> Tim,

Tim, Paul,

> > Guess what? I took a look at the midi info from my
> > kbd, and I seem to be getting Note On ($9x) commands
> > for both key down and key up.
> > Have I missed something here?
> 
> <ROFLMAO>
> no you havent missed anything..
> this kept me going for a few days..
> 
> One of the MANY things not mentioned by www.midi.org
> is that you can send a NOTE ON command with a velocity of ZERO to mean a
> note off...
> along with running status, oh and dont forget DAMNED MIDI clock!
> so if your synth sends a NOTE OFF command, the velocity value it sends is
> the release velocity.

Well yes... I think that most people tend to start of implementing
MIDI in the wrong end. They start of with "the stuff I need is this"
and reads about exactly that and nothing but that in the spec. Then
they face rought reality and has to expand their reading of the
spec. It then becomes "difficult" to implement.

Another way to attack it is to read the full spec (it isn't that big,
beleive me... you should see the SDH specs for instance) to understand
the full protocol. One should read it as if one where to implement it
all, and doing it well (naturally). Then, you cut out the stuff you
don't need, but only in a way that it doesn't obstruct the correct
parsing of the stream. This will leave stuff in which needs to be
there for a safe implementation.

For me MIDI doesn't look _THAT_ complicated, but there is a number of
things to watch out for.

> > Is my board whacked? Does anyone know anything about a
> > Kaysound MK-4902?
> >
> > HHHHHHHEEEEEEEELLLLPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!
> 
> welcome to MIDI, I need say no more..

Well, that's life in telecommunication and parsing, it easilly eats
you for breakfast, without even a burp of satisfaction!

Cheers,
Magnus